4 Leading with NLP
fied clerk. His boss seemed to know less and work less than
he did, and he referred to his in-tray as ‘Hell’ because it
seemed to be a bottomless pit of torture and was always full.
His out-tray was ‘the ocean’ because it was impossible to
empty. Quite appropriately, the depth of Hell was how the
boss decided what sort of worker you were. One Wednesday
morning, after a longer than usual drive to work through the
rush-hour traffic, a client blamed my friend loudly and pub-
licly for something he knew nothing about. ‘That’s it!’ he
shouted as he slammed the telephone down. ‘I’m leaving!’
And he did, after tipping the contents of his in-tray on his
manager’s desk. He started his own business, where he earns
less than he did before, but he is immeasurably happier, join-
ing the ranks of the self-employed who have a tolerant and
sometimes indulgent employer. He refers to that Wednesday
as ‘the day that all Hell broke loose’.
It can be a chance remark from a friend can set you
searching, or a new project at work, a manager who becomes
a mentor, moving house, starting a romantic relationship,
becoming a parent. In the popular rendition of chaos the-
ory, a butterfly flapping its wings in Beijing can conceivably
cause a hurricane in Texas, such is the complexity, intercon-
nectedness and unpredictability of the world’s weather
system. (If it worked the other way round, that would be the
real miracle.) Our social relationships are at least as complex
as the weather, so I have no trouble believing that a few
words from someone in the right place at the right time can
totally change your life.
You are called – to what? Let us look at this enigmatic qual-
ity ‘leadership’ more closely. The word deceives us in its
simplicity. It does not mean the same for everyone. Ideas
about leadership and what constitutes a good leader have
changed throughout history. They also differ from culture to
culture. For example, the American individualistic and chal-
lenging style of leadership is very different from the
Japanese style of leadership. A good leader in Japan seeks
consensus; they call it nema washi, meaning ‘digging around