Leadership Without Ego – Bob David TEDx

Leadership Without Ego – Bob David TEDx

In this Ted talk, Bob David discusses what he says is the rarest of commodities – Leadership Without Ego.

If you take a chain, pile it up and then push it, what direction will it go? Nowhere you can predict and not very far. If you take it by the end and pull it, which way will it go? It will follow you.

Leadership is not about what sets you apart from those you lead―it’s about what binds you together. It is not about controlling others―it’s about trusting others. It’s not about your achievements―it’s about unleashing your team’s greatness.

In short, leadership really isn’t about you―it’s about your people.

Take Bob Davids, a successful leader of six businesses in fields as diverse as engineering and winemaking. His achievements often came thanks to being able to refrain from acting when others might have found intervening irresistible. By trusting his employees to be better than him in their area of responsibility and letting them act, Bob unleashed the human greatness that no one else―including employees themselves―suspected.

Yet to lead without acting does not mean doing nothing. It means creating conditions in which things happen by themselves.