When I sat down to write this regular Tuesday more or less calm missive on things leadership, I noticed I sent off as Benari LTD what should have gone as Steve’s World a few days ago. This is the second time I have done this in the last month or so. Very odd. The sites look nothing alike, including the fact that this one says Benari LTD on it, including the place where I write this, and the other says Welcome to Steve’s World. Hardly close.
Clearly this is a case of the eyes seeing what they expect in spite of the reality in front of them. Which got me thinking about the implications for leadership and management in general. I have written both of these blogs weekly for several years and yet still managed to get them confused in my mind twice in the space of a month. Actually, “get them confused” is probably not the correct way of describing it since I didn’t notice the wrong heading in spite of editing and re-reading in final form a number of times.
I have never done this in reverse…writing a Benari LTD post and sending it off as Steve’s World.
From a leadership perspective it does lead to thoughts about being in your own bubble oblivious to the reality directly in front of you. In this case, staring at me a few inches above where the words are appearing as I type. If something as easy to notice as this can get past you, how much easier is it for less obvious things to escape your attention? How much easier to become so lost inside that you never notice that truck bearing down on you as you step off the curb.
In my case, it’s just an unbelievably embarrassing situation. Once is bad enough, but twice so close to each other? Clearly I really do need that keeper I keep thinking about finding. Luckily Steve’s World was relatively calm a few days ago, perhaps even interesting to those thinking about leadership since it talks about various travel issues, projects I’m working on, some excellent thoughts on leadership from Lars Bjork…CEO of QlikView, the power of words, and my upcoming appearance at the Wharton Africa Business Forum.
As last time this happened, I decided to find the way to take full advantage of my mistake. For from mistakes great things can come. After all, what really is leadership but turning mistakes and problems into opportunities and successes? When everything is just humming along, anyone can be a great leader.
Even more important for being an exceptional leader is building a culture where when mistakes happen, lots of people know how to grab on firmly and wrestle these mistakes and problems into new and better ideas and ways of doing things. Even better than great leadership is leadership where the culture you’ve built is so good…they hardly need you.
As Lars Bjork says, “the more I let go, the more powerful I get.”
“For from mistakes great things can come. ”
Indeed. But sometimes we just screw up.