If there is one thing I have learned in the land obsessed with leadership, then it’s this. I’m a silly old fool.

To me, leadership is about leading. And leading implies movement, not standing still. It is about going places, not staying put in one place.

Based on this view of leadership, I believe that a leader is successful when we get there, when we have arrived. By implication, a leader has failed when it becomes clear that we will not reach our destination or achieve our goal.

Somewhere in between still striving and arriving is where leadership happens, where leaders lead and followers follow.

For some weird reason, I have always assumed that leadership is about going forward and upward to a better place and time, to the better us we can all become.

And I assumed that sliding backward and downward we can do on our own, without the help of a leader. Silly old me.

Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.