Many of you know that I am a big proponent of leadership development. I recently read David Armano's blog that reminded me of a story I had heard before that does a great job of illustrating the need for good leadership.
Several years ago in an African wildlife preserve, park rangers noticed that rhinos started showing up dead. This was not occurring because of any disease or lack of food – the rhinos were killed. The puzzling thing was that the only animal capable of this was an elephant. However, rhinos and elephants rarely fought with each other. So, why was this happening?
The answer came when the rangers found a pack of adolescent elephants roaming the preserve looking for a fight. They found their fight in the rhinos. But why was this happening?
After further digging, it was found that each of these adolescent elephants were lacking a role model – a leader. The older males in their families were killed off by poachers so they were raised without this leadership. They did not know that killing rhino’s for sport was not appropriate.
Wanna know what the park rangers did to solve the problem?
They brought in a couple of mature elephant bulls. The “rowdy” adolescent elephants were quickly put in their place by the bulls and the killing of the rhinos stopped. The adolescents began to reflect the behavior of the mature bulls.
This is no different than us. We all need role models. We all need quality leaders. That also means we need to work on our leadership skills!
Several years ago in an African wildlife preserve, park rangers noticed that rhinos started showing up dead. This was not occurring because of any disease or lack of food – the rhinos were killed. The puzzling thing was that the only animal capable of this was an elephant. However, rhinos and elephants rarely fought with each other. So, why was this happening?
The answer came when the rangers found a pack of adolescent elephants roaming the preserve looking for a fight. They found their fight in the rhinos. But why was this happening?
After further digging, it was found that each of these adolescent elephants were lacking a role model – a leader. The older males in their families were killed off by poachers so they were raised without this leadership. They did not know that killing rhino’s for sport was not appropriate.
Wanna know what the park rangers did to solve the problem?
They brought in a couple of mature elephant bulls. The “rowdy” adolescent elephants were quickly put in their place by the bulls and the killing of the rhinos stopped. The adolescents began to reflect the behavior of the mature bulls.
This is no different than us. We all need role models. We all need quality leaders. That also means we need to work on our leadership skills!
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