The No-Eyed Big-Eyed Spider

On the Hawaiian island of Kauai, there are a few caves that contain one of the rarest and most unusual species of spiders on the planet.  I stumbled upon it when looking through one of my favourite wildlife websites, arkive.com with my oldest son Hayden and was immediately intrigued.

The no-eyed big-eyed spider is a member of the wolf spider family, a group of spiders with particularly big eyes.

However, due to their life spent in dark caves, they don’t need their sight and are completely blind.

So we have the no-eyed big-eyed spider.

Their relatives can see a lot, but they can see nothing, fumbling around in caves and barely surviving.

Whilst it seems like one of nature’s oddities, are we really that different?

The 10 Commandments of Leadership

Ever since Moses came down from Mt Sinai with the original 10 commandments in the Old Testament, people have had a fascination with top 10 lists.

As I’ve been musing on leadership principles recently, I’ve come up with my own 10 commandments of leadership. 

Of course, leadership is more complex and challenging than what you can fit into a list of 10 principles, but I hope that this is a good place to start that will get you thinking about how you can further develop your leadership capability.

It’s Not Their Fault!

One of the constant challenges that I’ve found in leadership is getting people to listen to, grasp and deliver on the vision and strategy that you have for the group.

There have been times when I have become frustrated and annoyed that the message just isn’t getting through and I’ve seen numerous leaders build a chasm between themselves and their people because “they” just don’t get it.

The temptation is to become condescending or just to stop talking to your people.  What’s the point, the message isn’t getting through anyway?

Great leaders understand that it’s not the fault of the people if the message isn’t getting through.  They take responsibility and adapt their communication techniques until they find a way to get their message across.

How can you do that?