I live directly beneath the flight paths of a lot of Canadian Geese. Up here in Canada when the nights begin to get a little cooler the geese get the hint and begin to plan the migration south. I hear them honk as they pass above my office. Watching them fly in their characteristic ‘V’ formation I recall how I learned at school that this formation provides the geese special benefits. In the formation they are benefiting from each others slip stream and therefore they use less energy on their long flights. The lead goose takes the brunt of the air resistance but when you watch them closely you discover that the geese take turns in the lead position.

You are probably expecting me to draw some sort of analogy from this - and I’d hate to disappoint. In organizations and teams it makes sense for leadership to be shared among the ‘flock’. I call this balancing leadership and followship. Great organizations like those mentioned in Jim Collins ‘Good to Great’ nurture this balance within their teams. By sticking together and having a flight plan each member takes their turns riding in the slip stream of the team. Conserving some of their energy for when it’s time to provide some leadership. Does your team work like this? if the answer is ‘no’ what do you think it will take for this level of collaborative intelligence to surface? According to Jim - facing the brutal facts is one of the first things that has to happen - this might include the admission that the team is not, in fact, flying in formation at all, or that some people were slip-streaming a little too much.