'We did this ourselves'

"Of a good leader, when his work is done the people will say 'We did this ourselves.'"

(Laozi, 6th Century)

For me, this particular aspect of leadership has always been the strength that lies behind servant leadership - the work is to support the people (teams/communities) to success and for them to own that success. Not to be in the stands or as part of the audience, but to be in field, empowered, calling the plays and taking the shots.

There are of course plenty of other important leadership approaches and some may interpret this quote as manipulation on part of the leader (puppeteer), or not recognising the efforts of the leader. I'm not a huge fan of 'one line wisdom' and I try to explore the different angles on such quotes if possible.

So with this in mind, I read this as describing humble leadership, where the 'we did this ourselves' recognises the contribution of leadership to support the conditions necessary for amazing things to take shape. Where the leader becomes one of the people and is recognised as such.

It also allows for the follow up statement,

'We did this ourselves ... and this is what we'll try to do tomorrow'.

Agile Business Transformations