Leadership Nudge® 391 – Good Leaders Go Against Their Instincts admin July 13, 2022

Leadership Nudge® 391 – Good Leaders Go Against Their Instincts

Leaders must work against natural human tendencies to build more empowering organizations. Here’s David at, Clava Cairns, with more.


I’m here at a place called Clava Cairns. It’s an ancient 4000 year-old burial site near Inverness (Scotland). And by the way, over here, this is the Highlander stone (Oops! He means Outlander stone), if you’ve ever seen that show.  

What the idea here is that only the most important people in society would have been buried in a place like this. And it strikes me that this, this idea that some people are very special, a sense of hierarchy, the sense of heroic leader, is pervasive in the human existence. And this is a force that you’re opposing.  

When we want to build more empowering organizations, where we want to say, “Well, hey, what everyone thinks matters.” And it’s important to understand that this is baked in deeply into the human experience. That’s why it’s so hard to do these things as leaders — that we’re actually working against what’s normal, natural human tendencies.   

I’m David Marquet. That’s your Leadership Nudge, here, outside the city of Inverness at the Clava Cairns.