Leading from behind

Leading from behind

CEO Stan asked all of us to "describe your leadership style" in our leadership team meeting. Stan was inspired by Wifey having read a new leadership magazine article and having been nagged all night by his brainy wife.

The first to speak up was Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd and "agile system architect" as he now calls himself. 

Comrade Carl has the tendency to speak for a long time, vacillating from an American to a Russian accent and then back, sprinkling his speech with references to internet of things and Russian swear words like kibinimat. 
After a few minutes of Carl's rambling, Stan started snoring and I began texting my sister.

However, I did pick up the essence of what Carl said.

• I see no problem that one software release has 45 different releases  for various clients. After all, the world is agile.
• Documentation does not need to be in English, especially since no one except HR and Sales speaks English. What's the problem with documentation in Hungarian, Danish, Turkish or Hebrew? Kibinimat, this is a global world.
• My style is leading from behind. My clients know where they want me to go. My nerds listen to client murmuring and they write code. I am a system architect, and I lead from behind. This is the beauty of my style.
• Zenga zenga is only for the hardware gang.

When Stan heard "leading from behind", he woke up and bellowed at Comrade Carl, "Jesus Comrade Carl, you sound like you are driving US foreign policy in the Mid East". 

Then Stan said to me, "Gloria, get Comrade Carl a new coach. Pronto." 

When I asked Hugh White (the straight white boy from Diversity) what he thought of leading from behind, he told me, "leave me out of this, Gloria"

Hugh was evasive