36 Leading with NLP
Being a leader is not always easy, though, and there are no
facile answers. Most choices are vague, fuzzy and cannot be
logicallyargued one way or another. I have a favourite Sufi
story about the holy man Nassr-U-Din presiding as a judge in
a civil court where two people were disputing a grievance.
The first man argued his case very eloquently.
‘That was very convincing!’ said Nassr. ‘You are obviously
right!’
‘A moment, sir,’ whispered the clerk of the court. ‘You
must wait for the other man to argue his case before decid-
ing.’
The second defendant took the stand and presented his
case no less eloquently.
‘Of course!’ said Nassr. ‘I must have been blind. Now I see
that you are right!’
The clerk pulled at his sleeve. ‘But my lord,’ he hissed,
‘they can’tbothbe right!’
‘No,’ said Nassr. ‘You’re right.’
Sometimes both ways seem right and yet we have to
choose one or the other – a difficult decision. In such cases
we have to follow what we trust. The word ‘trust’ comes from
the same root as the word ‘truth’. Truth for each of us is
what we trust. If we do not trust ourselves, then ‘truth’ be-
comes what others tell us. Ultimately, leadership means
trusting yourself and developing others to trust themselves.
People do not trust those who do not trust themselves.
leadership style
Different leaders will have different mixtures of knowledge,
authority and example. A teacher can be a leader by virtue
of what they know and the position they hold. A leader may
be someone with formal authority – a manager, an army
officer, police officer, or elected official. A leader may have
religious knowledge and authority. You cannot set yourself
up as a role model, that position, like leadership, is one oth-
ers have to give you, and it may be unwelcome. We have all