18 Leading with NLP
leads and a great leader finds out where everyone’s going
and gets out in front.’ A leader goes out in front, perhaps
literally, certainly metaphorically. How far out in front
should they be? Think about emotional distance. We talk
about people being ‘distant’ and of ‘staying in touch’ and
of ‘hands on’ management and ‘close’ friends and family.
When a leader ventures too far ahead, the smaller they
appear, and they get ‘out of touch’ and no longer under-
stand the mood and feelings of those they are supposed
to be leading. A distant leader can make the goal seem dis-
tant too.
Hierarchies create distance in another dimension, as we
talk about a leader being ‘above’ their followers. In my view,
vertical distance represents authority and horizontal distance
emotional closeness or loyalty. A leader who has authority in
a hierarchy can still be ‘close’ to their followers and many mil-
itary leaders create fantastic loyalty in their troops because
even the lowest ranks feel their commander understands
them. It also helps if a leader has ‘risen through the ranks’.
Then they really are more likely to understand the concerns
of the people they lead and it also gives them a credibility
with their followers that an outside leader lacks. The more au-
thority you have, the further up the hierarchy you are, and
organizations with many levels of management risk creating
too great a distance between the leaders and the followers.
We are not usually aware of how we think about leaders, but
our view can affect how comfortable we feel about being a
leader ourselves. If you think of a leader as large and loom-
ing over you, for example, you may feel uncomfortable
about being a leader to others, because that would mean
looming over them. When leaders are put on a pedestal, not
only are their feet of clay more visible, but it’s further to fall!
Consider what being a leader means to you. You will not
want to go on the leadership journey if you believe that a
leader has to be manipulative or superior.
Your ideas about leaders will be influenced by your expe-
rience of them. In 1997 I gave the first public NLP and