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The Right Approach: Leadership 101—Be a Heretic, Not a Sheep

True leaders drive change. They are not afraid of swimming against the current. Managers, however, drive the status quo. Their mentality, “It’s the way we have always done it,” feels safe and comfortable.

Balloon Factory
One of my favorite authors is Seth Godin. In his book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, he uses the metaphor of a balloon factory to describe a business environment that maintains the status quo. It’s a workplace full of workers—the balloons—who are fearful of sharp objects like pins, needles, and porcupines. They don’t like changes in temperature, or for that matter, changes of any kind. Godin’s point is that many workplaces are too concerned with maintaining the status quo, even though everyone there thinks it “sucks.” Still, they freak out when a “unicorn” shows up at the door, which is anything that disrupts the status quo of the balloons at the factory.

The average factory in our business is fraught with anxiety and short-term fixes that perpetuate the status quo. The average manager spends too much time and energy putting out fires instead of moving the business forward, and “firefighting” is extremely exhausting.

Does this sound familiar? If not, good for you, but you are probably in the minority.

Sheepwalking
When we say that people behave like sheep, we are saying they blindly follow the status quo because it is the “way we have always done things.” It’s called “sheepwalking.” I would bet a boatload of beer that at some point in your career, a boss told you something like, “Be a good soldier and just do what I say. You have to be a team player and take one for the team.” Many times, we do things we know are not right simply because we don’t want to rock the boat, cause issues, or put a bullseye on our backs. I don’t blame the sheep for their behavior; I blame leadership.

A personal story: Chris Kyle is a true-life hero who wrote the book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. Chris’s father once gave a speech in which he described three types of people in the world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. I have two sons in the military, one who later became a police officer, and I felt so strongly about his message that I got a tattoo of a sheepdog.

‘Never Hire a 5.0’
Another one of my favorite management consultants is Tom Peters, author of the book In Search of Excellence. At one of his appearances in the early ’80s, he said something that has stuck with me throughout my career. When talking about hiring leaders, he said, “If you are looking for a needle mover, never hire a 5.0.” It wasn’t until I was well into my leadership journey that I began to understand and embrace his advice. Tom’s point was that people who strive to be perfect don’t color outside the lines. They follow the rules and don’t think outside the box. In other words, they live by the status quo. Now don’t get me wrong, 5.0 GPAers are critical to running successful businesses. But they are not the visionaries who will bust through the status quo and lead the organization to bigger and better things.

Another personal note: When I began my undergraduate program, I was caught up in being a perfectionist and wanted to finish with a 5.0 GPA. I was a typical Type A overachiever, and along with that came the stress and pressure to be perfect. About halfway through the program, I received my first “B,” making my goal of a 5.0 out of reach. Once that happened, it was like a boulder was lifted from my shoulders, and I was able to enjoy the process. This was a critical revelation and instrumental in later helping me balance business school, work, and family. I now gladly embrace my “perfect imperfection.”

When I said earlier that I don’t blame the sheep, it’s true. In fact, I blame the leadership, and this includes leaders of our educational system. From elementary school through university, indoctrination is the norm and critical thinking is often squashed. Teaching and graduating sheep is a lot easier than developing students to think for themselves and question the status quo. I believe the reason we rank so low in world academic achievement is because we graduate so many sheep—well-educated, but compliant rule-followers, nonetheless.

‘Heretics’ are the New Leaders
What is a heretic? In this context of leadership, it is a person whose opinions, ideas, and perspective are in direct opposition to the current organizational norms. They challenge everything and don’t accept business as usual. In that sense, truly great leaders are heretics: they challenge the status quo, develop solutions, and drive change. Being a heretic is not for the weak. They are often (almost always) ridiculed, criticized, and not taken seriously at first. Heretics don’t follow; they lead. To quote Seth Godin:

Leaders go first.

Everyone will think it’s stupid!

Everyone says it’s impossible.

Guess what? Everyone works in the balloon factory and everyone is wrong.

One of the greatest heretics of all time, and another personal favorite, was Steve Jobs. He had the incredible vision to create products that people didn’t even know they wanted until they saw them. Designing products that were beautiful, simple, and intuitive shattered the cookie-cutter products of Apple’s competition. Remember spending Saturday afternoons in the record store? Now, remember your shock when Jobs introduced iTunes? We suddenly had the opportunity to buy only the songs we wanted instead of an entire album. It was not universally accepted at first but talk about a revolution in the music industry.

Henry Ford was another heretic who went against the grain with his vision of a motorized automobile. Had he asked people what they needed to improve their transportation, they would have told him, “A faster horse.” Just think where we would be today without these two heretics.

Leadership is hard, but what’s harder is finding the strength to become a heretic—to drive radical change in the face of massive resistance and inspire others to break norms and do the same.

This column originally appeared in the May 2023 issue of PCB007 Magazine.