Tuesday, July 27, 2010

communication & leadership



I finally watched the latest Alice in Wonder land film this weekend. With all the special effects and quirky characters, what I remember most actually is a new word, “muchness” defined early in the movie when The Mad Hatter explained to Alice that she had lost her much-ness, as in she had been so much more.


I like this new word. Let’s consider the muchness of people, leaders we know.


Have you ever witnessed someone to lose their muchness? …Their moxy? …Their rapport? ..Their cover?


It’s amazing how quickly your trust, respect, and “follow-ship” of a leader can be annihilated. I recently witnessed just this phenomenon. In this situation, the leader felt compelled to give grandiose speeches via email paired with long spaces of time between communications and avoided questions from others.


Was the intent to be cryptic? Controlling? Passive aggressive? Persuasive? This could also have been someone incredibly busy, prone to thinking out-loud, and not considering the relationship with the team.


Then this leader avoided, as in didn’t show up to a critical meeting with her team.

Unfortunately, whether meaning to or not, her cover was blown, her “muchness” removed, and her “follow-ship” erased.


Any benefit of the doubt was removed due to blatant disrespect.


The trap can be easy to fall into. How you are perceived by others is their reality of you. Constant communication helps to correct misconceptions and to keep conversation going.

What opinions are you holding of someone that a conversation might clear up?

What has caused you to lose “follow-ship” of a leader?