09/09/2020

Six Ways Leaders Can Help Employees be Their Best

The argument around "defunding" leadership

General Magic was a 1990 spin-off from Apple that few people have ever even heard of.  The company was led by Marc Porat, who had a vision of what the future smartphone would be like at a time there was no world wide web or digital phone. The Pixar 2018 documentary on the company tells the tale of a group of passionate, driven people who worked around the clock, sleeping under their desks to bring to market revolutionary technology tools. It is a compelling story. And, their ending is a sad story of corporate betrayal and unfortunate timing.

But all that was to get you to watch the movie. The scene I want to spotlight is one in which Apple CEO John Scully sent over a man charged with managing the General Magic engineering group. At a candid team meeting, someone asked his role, "I have been sent by corporate to be your manager." One of the General Magic engineers immediately responded, "Thanks, but we don't need a manager. We get overall leadership from Marc, which is all we need. A manager will just get in our way." 

It got me rethinking the true role of leadership. 

Please select this link to read the complete blog post from LeadChange.