There’s a difference between advising a leader and walking with one. I’ve done both for a long time, and the difference has become clearer to me over the years, not less.
Advising answers a question. Walking with a leader stays for the next one, and the one after that, long after the first answer has been tested and lived with.
Advising solves a problem. Walking with a leader notices the pattern underneath the problem — the root motivation driving the choices, the question he hasn’t been able to name yet, the weight he’s been holding so long he’s stopped noticing it.
Advising is about the business. Walking with a leader is about the person who owns the business, because in closely-held and founder-led businesses, the two can’t be pulled apart.
I’ve come to believe the leaders who last aren’t the ones who collect the most advice. They’re the ones who build a small circle of people who’ve earned the right to say hard things to them, and who stay close enough to notice when something needs to be said.
At Eden Business Concepts, this is the spine of everything we do. Strategic advising is part of it. Leadership coaching is part of it. Facilitating peer advisory teams through Convene is part of it. But the whole thing is one work — helping leaders become who they’re meant to be, not just helping them decide what to do next.
In the posts that follow in this series, I want to map out what I’ve learned about what this actually looks like. The signposts. The questions that mark the way. The patterns I’ve watched faithful leaders move through, often without realizing the path had a shape at all.
If you’re a leader who’s been walking alone for a while, consider this the first signpost: you weren’t meant to.