Issue 9 — The applause you didn't need

<p>There's a version of leadership that runs on being seen. It does the right thing a little louder when someone's watching, and a little less when no one is, and over time it stops being led by conviction and starts being led by the applause. The crowd becomes the compass, and the crowd is a poor one — it claps for what's popular, not for what's true.</p>
<p>The leaders who last are strangely free of this. They've made peace with doing the right thing unseen, and it's made them unbuyable, because you can't move someone with applause they were never working for.</p>
<h3>Heart Check</h3>
<blockquote>"I don't need the room to notice for the work to be worth doing."</blockquote>
<p>There's an old question that cuts clean here — <em>"Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God?"</em> (Galatians 1:10). It's a good weekly audit. Do one right thing this week that no one will see or thank you for, and notice how steady it feels to lead for an audience that doesn't need to clap.</p>
<p><strong>The line worth stealing:</strong> "If it's only worth doing when someone's watching, it wasn't worth much."</p>