CEO of Herman Miller, argues that’s the best way to treat every-
one: “The best people working for organizations are like volun-
teers. Since they could probably find good jobs in any number of
groups, they choose to work somewhere for reasons less tangible
than salary or position. Volunteers do not need contracts, they
need covenants.... Covenantal relationships induce freedom,
not paralysis. A covenantal relationship rests on shared commit-
ment to ideas, to issues, to values, to goals, and to management
process. Words such as love, warmth, personal chemistry, are
certainly pertinent. Covenantal relationships... fill deep needs
and they enable work to have meaning and to be fulfilling.”
British philosopher Isaiah Berlin said, “The fox knows many
things; the hedgehog knows but one.” Leaders are both fox and
hedgehog. They have mastered their vocation or profession, do
whatever they do as well as it can be done, but they are also
masters of the more fundamental, human skills. They’re able to
establish and maintain positive relationships with their subor-
dinates inside the organization and their peers outside the or-
ganization. They have not only the ability to understand the
organization’s dimensions and purposes, but to articulate their
understanding and make it manifest. They have the ability to
inspire trust, but not abuse it. Don Ritchey said, “They [your
co-workers] have to believe that you know what you’re doing.
You have to believe that they know what they’re doing, too,
and let them know that you trust them. I always took a little
more time, told people more than they needed to know....
You have to be absolutely straight with people, not clever or
cute, and you can’t think that you can manipulate them. That
doesn’t mean you have to think they’re all stars or that you
have to agree with everything they do, but the relationship, I
think, ought to be for real.”
On Becoming a Leader