J. Timothy King’s Blog

Initiative Horrifying Initiative

People talk up initiative, but they act it down. Initiative is something everyone says they want and admire. But initiative means change. It means doing something that the organization isn’t doing already. It means challenging the status quo and taking the lead for an unknown future.

If you’re a leader, an initiative-driven constituent will challenge you at every turn. If you’re a constituent, initiative requires courage.

Initiative makes managers feel threatened. This is something all managers must get over, or they will cease to be leaders. Unfortunately, most never do, and many squash the initiative out of their reports. But the best do whatever they can to encourage initiative, and they end up with engaged, effective teams made up of enthusiastic, happy individuals.

Lisa Haneberg in her blog Management Craft wrote something profound:

Our organizations (schools, businesses, families) are not set up to allow motivation and most squelch it big time. Our intrinsic juices might be so deeply covered and dejected that even the best intentions by people or bosses will fail to make a difference…

When will our education systems, families, and companies get it? For most, the answer is likely never. I think this is why the boom in entrepreneuralism. Even so, the same inertia plagues well intended innovators.

But don’t get down. Show initiative. It’s still the way to success. As Keith Ferrazzi says in his book Never Eat Alone, the worst they can do is fire you. And if you’ve read this book, you’ll understand why that’s not such a big deal.

-TimK