What is often viewed as leadership in the public sector – especially in the modern political climate – is actually not leadership at all. Rather, far too often it is simply poll-vaulting.
What do I mean by this term? A poll-vaulter is someone who has a role as either a perceived or actual person of influence. However, instead of initiating a position or taking leadership based on their personal conviction regarding what they believe to be the best direction or strategy, poll-vaulters instead conduct a survey among those they are expected to lead.
Using professional metrics management or by hiring professional pollsters, they simply “ask” those who look to them for leadership for their current opinion the matter in question at the time. Then, once the results are compiled, poll-vaulters jump to the front of the line and proclaim the poll-derived majority opinion as if it was their own idea or personal conviction.
Not.
Such behavior is not true leadership; it is merely poll-vaulting.
So the question for us is this: When necessary, are we willing to take a stand as a leader and set a course for those we lead, based on what we truly believe is best for the team? Or are we constrained to be overly sensitive to existing group-wide sentiments, and let the mood of the those we “lead” sway us in the direction they would tend to go anyway (with or without us).
Poll-vaulters or leaders. Which will it be for us?
