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Are You a Rebel or a Leader?

A good HBR article:

Are You a Rebel or a Leader?
Harvard Business Review blog, Jan. 25, 2011

“There is a fine line between a rebel and a leader, though we tend to conflate the two. A rebel resists conformity. Sometimes the rebel’s challenging voice helps an organization to discover a gap, push themselves to innovate, and ultimately to thrive. So the challenging, dissenting voice can, at times, be tied to leadership. But to be effective, we need to understand key distinctions:

To rebel is to push against something. To lead is to advocate for an idea.

To rebel is to say “heck no.” To lead is to say “we will.”

To rebel is to deny the authority of others. To lead is to invoke your own authority.”

Read the HBR column and its interesting distinction and I found myself sorting a few folks into camps. Think about those old debates about Library 2.0…

Stephen

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Posted on: January 30, 2011, 11:56 pm Category: Uncategorized

2 Responses

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  1. Love this. LOVE it.

  2. When I first read your excerpt, my immediate thought was–surely you can be both. Reading the column, I was relieved to find that was exactly what she was saying–“you can rarely be an effective leader without also having a little bit of rebel in you.” I love that. Thank you Stephen!