What’s up with that word, anyway… “Tidbit?” Tidbits are small and tasty, choice pieces.

Here’s an idea that may serve as a leadership tidbit:

– Leadership is cheering the success of others.

I’m sure we’ve all seen leadership exercised in many ways, some good and some bad. One behavior that seems common to me is the fear/jealousy of others’ success. It reminds me of the Aesop’s Fable about a dog and his reflection:

“It happened that a Dog had got a piece of meat and was carrying it home in his mouth to eat it in peace. Now on his way home he had to cross a plank lying across a running brook. As he crossed, he looked down and saw his own shadow reflected in the water beneath. Thinking it was another dog with another piece of meat, he made up his mind to have that also. So he made a snap at the shadow in the water, but as he opened his mouth the piece of meat fell out, dropped into the water and was never seen more.”

In one application of that story, I see the dog as being jealous of the other dog’s “success,” so much so that he lost awareness of the situation and blundered away his own. When I see a leader afraid or jealous of the success of those he leads, I think to myself, “Now there’s a leader whose team is probably looking for the first chance to jump.”

When you are leading from you current post, wherever that may be, I encourage you to be about the success of those around you. It may be a customer or a co-worker, maybe even a partner/vendor… Whoever they are, don’t be afraid of their success. Why? Because their success really is your success, and your success is not diminished, but rather enhanced by the success of those around you.