The Best Leadership Lesson

Brought to you by one of the greatest Comedians ever. John Cleese, in his recent Life’s Work interview by Adi Ignatius (and available on HBR.org), defines a true leader.

In the book Life and How to Survive It, which I developed with Robin Skynner, we decided that the ideal leader was the one who was trying to make himself dispensable. In other words, he was helping the people around him acquire as many of his skills as possible so he could let everyone else do the work and just keep an eye on things, minimizing his job and the chaos that would come with a transfer of authority.

‘Nuff said.