One of the follies of new leadership is attempting to win a non-existent popularity contest.
Leaders have one job – to make the decisions that help the team win. This often means making tough, sometimes unpopular, decisions.
It is so tempting to just try to be liked and to make everyone happy. But that’s a road to nowhere.
The only antidote is to take charge when you’re in charge, to do everything you can to help the team win, and to treat everything else as noise.
Ironically, that’s the best way to win that non-existent popularity contest – at least among the crowd that counts.
