Leading from the Middle

Caption: Both Sides Covered.
“War broke out between all the beasts and the birds. When the ostrich was captured, she fooled both sides by being both a bird and a beast: she showed the birds her head, and the beasts her feet. 
You cannot trust a two-faced associate.”
And so it was for me when a colleague agreed with a policy decision we’d thrashed out in our administrative group, only to backtrack at the first bit of foofaraw. Predictably, the fuss would be made by his own staff. When I confronted him, he’d claim forgetfulness or, like a petty politician, weasel (n.b. unfair to our animal friends) about the true meaning of the agreed upon policy. Aesop pinned the tail on this donkey: In the administrative group he’d display his “head” and in the staff meeting he’d show his “feet”.

*Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.

Leading from the Middle Library of the Week: Boca Raton Public Library

Copyright John Lubans 2013

 

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