Management involves a huge amount of compromise, and hubris amongst all the more usual stuff you see about strategy, vision, performance measures and the like. We are all human, and often seek the easy way out, the low risk option.
Often, this involves telling others what they want to hear.
Making a difference in any environment usually means being prepared to be different, to rock the boat, take a risk, and offer others an alternative to consider, and to tell it as you see it, be prepared to be wrong, but work hard to bring a different perspective to the table.
This is usually a pretty uncomfortable place to be, particularly in an environment of so called collaboration where conformance is valued, which is most organisations I see.
Real value is rarely added by conformance, the best that can bring is more of the same, perhaps done a bit more efficiently.
What we need in a world changing at the rate it is, are people who do not conform, who are prepared to take risks and have a go, and welcome the consequences.
