Tribes: We need you to lead us

Part of leadership (a big part of it, actually) is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize that you’re going to get there one way or another …so they follow.

find leaders (the heretics who are doing things differently and making change), and then amplify their work, give them a platform, and help them find followers—and things get better. They always get better.

Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.

Let’s continue for a minute, then, and think about when. Do you have what you need to lead? Do you need more power or education or money? When will you have enough of what you need in order to start leading a tribe? If someone gave you two weeks to give that speech or write that manifesto or make that decision, would that be enough time? If two wee

Flynn Berry wrote that you should never use the word “opportunity.” It’s not an opportunity, it’s an obligation. I don’t think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible.

At the end of February 2008, I was lucky enough to read Adam Gopnik’s great New Yorker piece about the long-lived worldwide tribe of magicians. Jamy Ian Swiss embodies, in some ways, the leadership I’m talking about.

Jacqueline noticed that the way messages spread in Rwanda was by song. One group of women would sing a song for other women, both as a way of spreading ideas and as a gift. No song, no message. Your tribe communicates. They probably don’t do it the way you would; they don’t do it as efficiently as you might like, but they communicate. The challenge

A crowd is a tribe without a leader. A crowd is a tribe without communication. Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organizations assemble the tribe.

Over and over again, the Sternins have discovered a simple process: find leaders (the heretics who are doing things differently and making change), and then amplify their work, give them a platform, and help them find followers—and things get better. They always get better.

I hope that’s not so simple that it gets ignored, because it’s important. It’s such an effective idea that it saves children’s lives every day. All the Sternins did was find the mom with the healthy kids. And then they helped the others in the village notice what she was doing. They gave that mom a spotlight, encouraging her to keep it up and, more