We talk to a lot of students about how to get jobs and internships and one of the keys in business is talk about what YOU can do and how you can help grow a company with your skills. Don’t talk about other candidates or business in the space. Even if asked bring the conversation back to advancing your qualities; what your competitors do should not be part of the conversation. It’s also why coaches rarely, and shouldn’t, talk about other teams players or skills or strategy. Yet in the big business of politics, fueled by corporate America and big deal donors very successful in business, it is all about demeaning your opponent, talking about him or her and saying how terrible they are vs what you can do. That’s not just for the Presidential race, and it holds for both recent candidates, but down to even the local school board.
The best leaders I have worked with are about building consensus and culture; the best teachers learn from their mistakes and move on. They reward success and find ways to motivate positively, not through negativity, especially when you believe that you are never the smartest person in the room. Does everyone deserve a trophy? No. However everyone deserves a fair shake from those in a position of authority, and by the way, with a position of authority comes a responsibility to move higher and be held to a bigger standard than those around you. That is important in parenting, in management, in coaching, in everything we do as we mature. It is easy to mock and ridicule others. It is much harder to take it, learn and move on.
Maybe when investing dollars in candidates big business should think about their own hiring process and how leadership got there. Did they want to grow their business or just crap on everyone else? What should work in business, and for young people going into the hiring world, should be the way in politics times TEN.
Isn’t that what true leaders do at every level?
And on we go…
