Richard Ingram, following up on Rol's post, said in LO11348:
> Leaders are usually about two steps ahead of their followers. They
> have to be ahead, or they wouldn't be leading, but they cannot be so
> far ahead that they cannot see their followers or their followers
> cannot see them.
> Pioneers, on the other hand, are usually five or more steps ahead of
> everyone else. They don't pay attention to whether anyone is
> following or not, because this knowledge would make little or no
> difference to them.
These are good distinctions and help to clarify some of the differences.
Yet, I've seen it expressed, operationally of course, a bit differently:
Leaders are the ones just ahead of the group who are the targets of the
external competition because they are visibly leading their teams of
people forward.
Thus, Leaders are the ones with the arrows in their Chests.
Pioneers, on the other hand, don't appear to be leading the group onward
and thus are much more likely to generate a variety of negative
organizational / political reactions.
Thus, Pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their Backs.
Thus, we have a simple physical test for determining the difference, of
course. It may not be always accurate, since some organizations may also
appear to "shoot from all sides" when suggestions for improvement are
encountered from within. And the good news is that most of these
organizations do not have accurate marksmen.
(And both may be observed pulling heavy wagons uphill).
Hope that this helps clarify the issues once and for all,
--For the FUN of It!
Scott Simmerman Performance Management Company 3 Old Oak Drive Taylors, SC 29687-6624 (USA) 74170.1061@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>