Tribes: We need you to lead us

You can’t have a tribe without a leader—and you can’t be a leader without a tribe.

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.

When the Los Angeles Philharmonic, one of the most prestigious in the world, went looking for a new conductor, they had their pick of perhaps a thousand qualified individuals. These were world-class people who had been tested and proved at doing the work of running an orchestra the traditional way. They hired Gustavo Dudamel. He is a twenty-six-yea

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

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.

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

Simple example: ten years ago, if you wanted to publish a book, you needed to find a publisher that would say yes. No publisher, no book. Today, of course, you can publish a book all by yourself. Just visit Lulu.com and you’re done. Without someone to say yes, all that’s left are unpublished writers who tell themselves no.