Karim Vaes

Some time ago I made a post about the different management styles and today I would like to continue on that feeling with a story. Imagine a shepperd and it’s flock… Who do you also notice in the picture? The shepperd’s dog! A flock, despite individual talents, needs to be led to a given point. It’s for the sheppard to see which paths need to be travelled. He sets out his dog to guide the flock to that given point, yet the shepperd will always take a lookout to see if there aren’t any unexpected things on their path. If so, he will once again instruct his dog to guide the flock away from danger and back on course to the place they have to arrive.

Imagine the CEO as a shepperd and the dogs as your management. The CEO sets out the lines and global path of the company. Then it’s up to the management to guide the employees to the company’s goals. Here I don’t want to patronize all the other employees as being “stupid sheep”, but the story was purely told as a reference to the guiding function of the whole management group. I still believe that everyone with management responsibility needs to be a “collaboration” (servant?) manager and guide his/her team to the company goal. The dog does it out of love for the shepperd and the flock (and maybe a bit because it’s fun… ).