Leaders Look Under the Bridge
This is NOT the bridge by my house. This is a bridge in Singapore.
There's a bridge along my walking route. It's been under construction for several weeks and just open back up today. When you drive across the bridge you would never know there's anything different, other than new pavement.
New pavement is great. It's smoother. It looks better. But that's not why the bridge was closed for month. There was a much more serious condition than a couple of potholes. They replaced beams and abutments. The parts no one sees, or thinks about until there's a tragic collapse.
A key characteristics of a wise leader is the habit of thinking about the parts of their organization that no one else is paying attention to.
And you don't need a title or a position to look under the bridge. Wise leaders just do this.
Bridge parts deteriorate over time. So do the parts of our businesses and organizations. There are several. Leaders need insight and outsight to look under the bridge to see them — and arrange for repair.
- Vision drift.
- The wrong tools.
- Too much of a good thing (or a bad thing).
- Deteriorating team culture.
- Exponential time wasting.
- Off-brand communication and story telling.
This list could definitely be longer.
Leaders need to look under the bridge way more than everyone else. Nobody likes closing the road so we can work on the bridge. You'll get a lot of complaints. But you get even more complaints when the bridge collapses from inevitable deterioration over time. The foolish leader is "out-of-sight-out-of-mind."
Wise leaders look under the bridge and are not afraid to stop all traffic to make the necessary adjustments.
And sometimes we even get fresh pavement in the process.
