"Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it"
About this Quote
Leadership, in Naisbitt's telling, is less heroic charge than well-timed interception. "Finding a parade and getting in front of it" punctures the CEO-as-visionary myth with a businessman’s pragmatism: most winning "leadership" is pattern recognition plus positioning, not prophecy. The joke lands because we all know the type - the figure who arrives just as momentum becomes undeniable, then narrates that momentum as destiny.
The intent is diagnostic. Naisbitt, who built a career in trend-spotting and forecasting, is describing a marketplace where signals accumulate quietly before they become headlines. In that world, the leader is a reader of weak signals: demographic shifts, technology adoption curves, cultural taste changes. The "parade" is collective action already underway; "getting in front" is the act of translating it into a story others can follow, invest in, and organize around.
The subtext is a little cynical, but it’s also a warning label. If leadership is mainly about surfing existing energy, then the moral credit leaders claim is often overstated. It also means leadership can be faked: attach yourself to a movement, rebrand it, and call it strategy. Yet there’s a grudging respect here for timing and framing as real work. Movements without a front-runner can dissipate; markets without a narrative don’t allocate resources efficiently. Naisbitt is arguing that influence is frequently downstream of social momentum, and that the smartest leaders are the ones humble enough to chase it - and skilled enough to steer once they do.
The intent is diagnostic. Naisbitt, who built a career in trend-spotting and forecasting, is describing a marketplace where signals accumulate quietly before they become headlines. In that world, the leader is a reader of weak signals: demographic shifts, technology adoption curves, cultural taste changes. The "parade" is collective action already underway; "getting in front" is the act of translating it into a story others can follow, invest in, and organize around.
The subtext is a little cynical, but it’s also a warning label. If leadership is mainly about surfing existing energy, then the moral credit leaders claim is often overstated. It also means leadership can be faked: attach yourself to a movement, rebrand it, and call it strategy. Yet there’s a grudging respect here for timing and framing as real work. Movements without a front-runner can dissipate; markets without a narrative don’t allocate resources efficiently. Naisbitt is arguing that influence is frequently downstream of social momentum, and that the smartest leaders are the ones humble enough to chase it - and skilled enough to steer once they do.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
|---|
More Quotes by John
Add to List
