Leadership Part II — Gathering Eagles

“If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.”

In my first post about Leadership I suggested every business professional in any industry should focus their efforts on FINDING and DEVELOPING leaders. We often get caught up in what we think we should be doing but ultimately we need to build people. Nothing scales like a leader.

Today I would like to frame what a leader is in a different way: a leader is an Eagle. Here’s why:

Eagles can see a nickel in a grassy field from 2 miles above ground.

Eagles can dive at speeds of up to 99 miles per hour.

When an eagle dives into water, it has special feathers — upon emerging it is completely dry.

An eagle always knows when another eagle is close by because only their species can fly at those altitudes.

When there is a storm and other birds hide and take cover, an eagle lets the powerful winds of the storm carry them higher.

When eagles mate they do so in the air. Other birds mate on the ground. Eagles soar high and free fall to mate. An eagle always knows it’s never mating with a chicken :)

The first key then is to find Eagles. Look up.

The second key is to develop these leaders.

Both male and female eagles participate in raising the eagle family. She lays the eggs and protects them; he builds the nest and hunts. While training the young ones to fly, the mother eagle throws the eaglets out of the nest. Because they are scared, they jump into the nest again.

Next, she throws them out and then takes off the soft layers of the nest, leaving the thorns bare. When the scared eaglets again jump into the nest, they are pricked by thorns. Shrieking and bleeding they jump out again this time wondering why the mother and father who love them so much are torturing them.

Next, mother eagle pushes them off the cliff into the air. As they shriek in fear, father eagle flies out and catches them up on his back before they fall and brings them back to the cliff. This goes on for sometime until they start flapping their wings. Subsequently, the most amazing feeling comes over them with the newfound knowledge that they can fly.

Find…

Find and develop…

Leaders.

Your friend,

Greg

Inspired by THIS SPEECH from a legendary eagle James Adlam. Additional insights from this article.

P.S. “Calm seas don’t need great captains”