Fighting Fires or Lighting Fires?

This flew by my eyes yesterday (HT Mark Storm)…

The bit I’m most drawn to is the pithiness of definition – it’s by Kenneth Mikkelsen:

If Management is about Fighting Fires, Leadership is about Lighting Fires

It’s so easy to get drawn into fighting fires. The machinations of the organisation around us make it easier for you get involved in the urgent thing that must be solved. It sucks the time, the energy, the impetus to do anything but focus on the problem at hand.

But if you work that way, if you battle to extinguish every fire in the business, it’s probably at the moment just after you put out the last one that you realise there’s no more fires to be fought, because the company has run out of things to burn. There’s nothing left to do.

Remember to light more fires, folks.

NB.

Of course, I have a track record in natty turns of phrases involving firey metaphors. I never use that one at all anymore, but somewhat unbelievably it’s five and a half years old. Where did the time go, eh?

• Category: culture, people