Leading Leaders

Leaders are in for a new set of challenges when they are called upon to manage people who are themselves leaders. This challenge is particularly prevalent in “high talent” organizations made up of people with high levels of education, skill, wealth, and influence, such as other executives, highly educated experts, investors, board members, government officials, physicians, and attorneys.

Leaders, when they are in the capacity of followers, always have options not to follow. Leadership, especially of other leaders, is not, therefore, a matter of position, but of relationships. Relationships enable leadership because they contain the two vital forces that cause people to act: trust and self-interest.

In Leading Leaders, Jeswald Salacuse stresses that the most effective way to influence “elite-followers” to act for the benefit of an organization or group is to build a relationship with them, one-on-one. Smart, talented, rich, and powerful people require one-on-one, tailor-made, up close and personal leadership.