The Plant and The Machine!

He asked me 'Will he move out? He is the one who has built this team from scratch to where it's now.'

I tried sensing emotion behind the question. Was it a feeling of attachment, of fear, or of discomfort?

I thought it was a combination of all emotions.

The person who was moving out was struggling with his own emotions. He asked me 'Is this a message to me? Am I not doing well?'

I felt for him. But I sensed the need for a change of guard.

He had built the business to a certain size. He had 'seeded' an industry at its nascent stages. He had made saplings sprout and overseen their growth to a healthy and beautiful plant

There was enough opportunity now to make plant grow to a tree. Essentially, market was poised for explosive growth. But same skills that had held him in good stead in ramp up stage threatened his success in explosive growth stage.

Soon a new leader came in. His style was diametrically opposite to previous leader.

No more was there space for experiments and pilots. Everything had to be done on a large scale. Feedback style changed to more direct and less encouragement.

It felt less like a lab/playground and more like a war machine.

We knew what we wanted to achieve and we will get it!

Did we succeed? We seem to be on the right path.

Was leadership change necessary?

Well. I don't know.

At this time, I am left with a few observations/questions:

• Do we typecast 'preference' as 'strengths' and exclude possibility of leader being able to use learned (non-preferred) behavior too?
• Plant and Machine are roles appropriate to different growth stages of a team/business. Different roles can be played by same person. But at times it may be necessary to change leadership too.
  I relate more to a plant than to a machine. At same time I feel there is a lot to learn in the machine mode.
• Sometimes a leader is impatient to make an impact. It is important to guide the leader's energy in right direction. It's possible that when one has a hammer everything looks like a nail.

-
Sourav