The Law of Priorities: Leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Leaders should get out of their comfort zone but stay in their strength zone.

I suppose that some of my economic training will shine through right now but, not being one of my strong suits, please excuse my rudimentary comments. The division of labor is the breakdown of labor into specific, circumscribed tasks for maximum efficiency. The fragmentation or reduction of human activity into separated toil that is the practical root of alienation and basic specialization which makes civilization appear and develop. The specialization and concentration of the workers on their single sub-tasks often leads to greater skill and greater productivity on their particular sub-tasks than would be achieved by the same number of workers each carrying out the original broad task. These principles speak to the point that I’m trying to articulate. Specifically, that there is a fixed difference between those of us with natural abilities to lead and strategize effectively, and those with competent ability to manage tasks but not strategy, and the vast majority of the remaining population whose cog specializations keep humanities machine running smoothly. It is very important to be at peace with one’s strengths and weaknesses.

In Plato’s “Republic” we are instructed that the origin of the state lies in that “natural” inequality of humanity that is embodied in the division of labor. Emile Durkheim celebrated a fractionated, unequal world by divining that the touchstone of “human solidarity,” its essential moral value is division of labor. Before him, according to Franz Borkenau, it was a great increase in division of labor occurring around 1600 that introduced the abstract category of work, which may be said to underlie, in turn, the whole modern, Cartesian notion that our bodily existence is merely an object of our (abstract) consciousness.

“The leader is one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, ‘Wrong jungle!'” – Stephen Covey

“There are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few things that will catch my heart.” – Tim Redmond