LeadershipHQ Magazine 3rd Edition September Issue | Page 36

Seth Godin, Tribes and Leadership Mistakes
By Sonia McDonald

You may know Seth Godin as the author of Tribes: We Need You To Lead
Us in which he says that:
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a
leader, and connected to an idea. For
millions of years, human beings have
been part of one tribe or another. A
group needs only two things to be a
tribe: a shared interest and a way to
communicate.”
As leader, you have a tribe of your
own which, although perhaps artificially constructed via the workplace,
is nevertheless relying on you to lead
it somewhere. It is up to you to build
the same commitment that a socially
or culturally formed tribe has.

The secret of
leadership is
simple: Do what
you believe in.
Paint a picture
of the future. Go
there. People
will follow.
Seth Godin

36 | © LeadershipHQ 2015

Passion attracts crowds and builds
tribes. If you can see the future and it
inspires you, your passion will show.
You will begin to create ideas and
change the status quo. It is almost
impossible not to be caught up in
the excitement of your vision. That’s
how you turn an assortment of team
members into a cohesive tribe. That’s
how they begin to support and follow
you, and to contribute ideas of their
own. That’s how momentum is built.
Once you have your tribe you need to
nurture it. You are a special collection
of people who will gradually develop
your own culture and norms. Those
are ties that bind you together –symbols of belonging, and something to
be proud of. The in-jokes are part of
your communication system which
gradually allows as much to be left
unsaid as it does said, yet everyone in
your tribe still understands perfectly.
So, as leader, what happens if you lose
your way? What happens if you make
a mistake? Will your tribe fall apart or
abandon you?

That’s a question that bothers most
leaders at some stage because mistakes are inevitable. We’re all human.
But according to Godin, it’s not the
mistake that can kill off a team; it’s the
way you handle it.
Are you the kind of leader who beats
yourself up over every little error? Are
you the kind of leader who broods
over what you should have done, but
didn’t? That negativity is what will
bring your tribe to a standstill and
eventually break it apart.
The way you choose to handle a situation is vital. Remember, you have a
tribe which means you are connected through a common vision and
purpose. Negativity can shatter that
visi ۈ[