One of the primary jobs of a leader is to keep the group together and working towards a collective outcome. Everyone on a team moves at a different speed and has a natural cadence. It's very easy for a disruptive leader to get impatient and lose important members of the team who are crucial for execution. Who are you leaving in the dust?

I hired a mountain guide years ago to run a leadership workshop on a back country ski tour in Roger's pass. As part of my training, Karl asked me take the lead up and over a large ridge. I blasted my way up the uncut trail and got into a nice powerful rhythm well ahead of the rest of the party. I got to the top of the ridge feeling awesome about myself, my speed and my skiing ability.

When Karl got to the top of the knoll, he asked me what I would have done if one of the party fell into a crevasse or got caught in an avalanche. I had no answer. There was nothing I could have done so far ahead and out of sight and contact with the people I was supposedly leading. Fail. I did not manage my cadence.

There are no bad teams only bad leaders.

The world is moving very fast and not everyone is keeping up. If you've discovered a profitable way of doing anything, other less imaginative competitors will come along and copy you at a lower price. It's a constant battle to stay relevant and this is the root of a sense of urgency that can devolve into impatience. If we don't disrupt ourselves then someone else will be happy to do it for us. The way it could be in time has to replace the way it is or else the way it is will cease to be at all.

Most of the people in any organization are involved in keeping what's working working and making sure the business stays in business. The apparently nimble, unhooked disruptors out front with a vision often see these maintainers as slower and more resistant to change. "They just don't get it."

We don't accomplish anything truly worthwhile without a team.

The cadence of the team and its capacity to execute reflects dynamic disruptors and methodical maintainers. The team that arrives at the summit together wins. Success. We execute the vision and leave the competition in the dust instead of members of our team.

The fifth book in the blindspotting series on "realism and inspiration" is available here. Buy it and you will have an insight that leads to a stronger team that moves together faster.