Leadership on the Line by Martin Linsky—Chapter 4 Review: Think Politically

Politics is all about relation, communication and interpretation. Being a Leader, One must put the hat on in all times possible. Relationships play important part and working with those relations are more important. The chapter talks about 6 types of relations but it’s not an easy task to keep up all 6 roles. But that’s what Leadership really means, maintaining all ends.

A well-known saying just popped in my mind, “Keep your friends close, enemies’ even closer.” This chapter reflects partly on that. The saying doesn’t include the people between friends and enemies. And one can’t draw a decisive arena of this type.
Even with visionary ideas one cannot successfully implement them alone. And to change a system or the people of that system it becomes more daunting task. To be a true leader, one must seek friends as well as enemies. Friends are the ones with little loss and enemies are the ones who fear the change. In this retrospect, one can rectify your ideas and system with the thoughts of opposed ones. One must think of the friends as well as the enemies and also need to acknowledge the loss of the ones that don’t want to go through a change. After 2001 September, I was also a spectator of CNN while New York City moaned. While I was reading the example I can recall the event, when the Mayor was coming to ground zero and expressing his grief. But at the same time, he was saying to his fellow city dwellers to be strong and not to give up their daily life. This created solidarity among the citizens.

To change the behavior of a bunch, one needs to set out the role model first. People who order don’t usually stand at the end of the gun. But this should not be the thing if one pursues to become effective and role model. The Israeli CEO Ivram did the perfect thing by starting working in the position where incident took place. It showed his people that he was with them and he was willing to give his life with them even if accidents happen. Situations likes this creates equilibrium in the minds of the people working under the authority.

One needs to setup the bench mark as Patterson did. He was trying to implement true journalism and publish news without any fear. And it was not easy for him to do so, as his colleagues in the newspaper needed to know to what extent it is applicable. So Patterson did what he thought the best thing to do.

Accept Causalities is the aspect of this chapter I liked most. When there is any sort of adaptive change on the line, some will approve it, some will not and others in the middle. The ones that cannot change or denies taking part in it, you can try to convince but if it becomes like they will not be able to take part as a team, then it’s better to let them go. But do acknowledge the loss they are facing and the fact that it’s not their fault.

As I mentioned in my other chapter reviews, staying alive is important because not only a person’s life is on the line when he/she is the Leader, but also the people who are following him/her. This chapter just strengthens the belief.