Category: Management

You may have heard managers describe themselves as having a people first leadership style. It’s so incredibly safe. Who has ever got in trouble for declaring themselves to put people above all else in some vague, detail-free fashion? How could anyone argue against it? Well hold my weave because I’m going in.

Looking at how it plays out in practice, stripped of its emotional appeal, “people first” could be seen as a euphemism for discrimination and plundering the common good. That’s bad.

I’m going to compare and contrast it with something I call people third leadership, which has the following set of priorities:

1. Ethics (Universal Principles)
2. The Business (The Commons)
3. People (Individual Interests)

I’m going to argue that by placing people third, we actually create a better environment for them.

The tl;dr is that management is a set of powers and accountabilities that the role confers upon you, whereas leadership is the ability to motivate followers. Anyone can be a leader, and teams run on leadership not management. Management is not necessarily bad, but management without leadership is pretty dang terrible! Also management is like the nervous system of an octopus.