Lawrence Lewis

It’s no small thing to lead a tribe…both in a small ‘t’ sense and big capital ‘T” way…creating movement and motion within that body of souls is hard, and rightly so.  It should be hard, because leading is based on the worthiness of the message, the person, and the method…if it is was easy then everyone would be doing it – and clearly this is not happening as often as it should…most elected Indian ‘leaders’ struggle to truly lead anyone within their tribe or the Tribe, as the case may be.  The vernacular reminds us that there is a fairly large difference between those that manage and those that lead…the former delivering known outputs with known resources and generally not very inspiring or earth shattering…the latter is more about driving change which results in something exponentially more than the sum of its parts.  Many elected Indian leaders start combating the micro-tribes being created and lead everyday by people within, right under their noses, with more often than not an agenda that is contrary to the efforts of the elected leadership…what these seemingly unknowing usurpers understand is the ability to connect easily with and motivate like-minded tribe members through their leverage of technology…this is the most powerful and revolutionary reveal of FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and still it often confounds those in power.  What these elected leaders continue to fail to understand is that these media, regardless of the sophistication of the plan or resources invested in utilizing them or the splash and dazzle of the effort…is that if the message fails to motivate and fails to inspire – if the elected leadership is compromised or acting like spoiled royalty…the tribe will not follow, and so begins the downward spiral of distrust, despair and everything uninspiring and sad.  Imagine…just imagine…what the Tribe could do with valid and true Leaders who understand this difference.

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Lawrence Lewis

“Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.” ― Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us