Leading a business comes with many challenges and many opportunities.  Sometimes we use the analogy of a cat as an opportunity.  You have to decide if you are going to grab the cat’s tail and wrestle with it or not.

“I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and he learned 40% more about cats than the man who did not.”  Mark Twain

The best leaders grab cats’ tails.  With the right cat, leaders end up wrestling the cat.  The cats can be quite big also:  jaguars, panthers, tigers and even a lion from time to time.  The smart leaders choose when and how to grab the tails, but there is always a high level of “unknown” involved that creates much excitement and brings to bear the capabilities of the leader and the team.  Having to wrestle a cat is one of the best ways to learn, teach, and develop a high performing organization.

To read more about the 8 characteristics of how the best leaders wrestle their cats, read this month’s Compass Check.

Download August’s Compass Check