What makes a good leader?

Being a good leader is like being the rope. Think about it, a rope is super versatile!

A rope can be thrown out like a life line to give people a means to climb up, which in a real life leadership position is like a career path that you provide to your team members.

In addition, this same rope builds cohesion because it gathers. This cohesion creates a stronger bond between people and makes it so that people work together.

A rope can be a timeline too, with imaginary knots to tie multiple ropes together. The knots are learning curves that a person must solve in order to grow and flourish. These can be trainings that are provided and skills that are learned through these trainings as well.

A rope can provide support when networked together into a strong mesh. This is similar to upper leadership, where one oversees multiple departments. The cohesion is there, each section supports, yet serves their own duties all within the boundaries of their area.

Finally, as a more disciplinary thing, leadership is not all about growth, it is just as well as solving and removing issues, so a rope can be used as a fishing line to take out the bad fish, and as a whip to contain a problem. While I would never endorse the physical use of a whip in a leadership position, or any position for that matter- imaginary whips are like disciplinary actions that involve Human Resources, and it is a path to let someone go, not a path to improve to let someone stay,

I was the rope for ten years, and I must say, I did enjoy it, even though life turns into the art of tug of war, between upper leadership, the manager, and the team, it is worth fighting for both and finding that happy medium. I have seen several bad leaders who are stuck and would rather whip those below them and who then use their rope as a means to climb over top of others. To me, that is not leadership, that is not elevation, that is abusive and should not find itself in a workplace in any shape or form. One can be proud to reach the top, though one should be humble because it took a catch net at the bottom and a rope ladder to get you up there. Therefore, never take employees for granted and never take leadership for granted, it requires teamwork.