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Three Key Leadership Sightlines

I overheard three hunters discuss sitting in a tree stand. It was a large stand and all three could sit there for hours. They discussed how they maintained sightlines in differing directions.

There are three leadership directional sightlines.

A leaper looks forward.

A paver looks backwards.

A spanner looks both ways.

A leaper provides great vision, a paver gives stability with best practices from the past, and a spanner keeps the team working together.

Once the concepts of leaper, spanner, and paver are understood, leaders intuitively know their sightline — whether they look forward, backward, or back and forth.

A leadership team that doesn’t recognize sightlines will err in considering someone looking in differing direction inadequate to the task or even wrong. A paver may want to oust a leaper and certainly vice versa for a leaper. The spanner may want to quit.

Re-considering the three hunters. Why would they all look in the same direction? The idea is to see the deer and that is best accomplished by looking in three directions.

1 thought on “Three Key Leadership Sightlines”

  1. Hey Grant: After all these years I can vividly recall two incidents as a youngster while visiting you in Springfield. 1.) To prepare me for riding your ‘motor scooter’ for the first time you carefully and thoroughly instructed me on how to use the handle controls for accelerating and braking. I knew how to ride a bicycle but a motorized version was new to me. After successfully making a couple laps around your backyard I began to prepare to slow down and stop the scooter but instead of choosing the braking control I inadvertently chose the accelerator while simultaneously hitting a bump that resulted in a jolt that threw my entire body, head over heels, over the handlebars and onto the ground, wrecking your scooter. 2.) During my visit, we went to the Clark County Fair together with two girls. My first date? While on a miniature train ride through a dark tunnel I turned to kiss my date. Imagine my surprise when I felt my lips on a head of hair! Poor timing. She had turned away from me to see something on the opposite side. I was too embarrassed to try for another kiss. Live and learn! — Btw, to this day I cannot recall how you and I met, because I resided in New Carlisle at the time. I was very good friends with Dale Ward, who I believe is related to you in some way. Perhaps cousins?

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