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What happened in Egypt last week is not complicated. There is one lesson...just one.
It's easy to get swept away by the powerful emotion of the moment and see just the eighty million people yearning to be free. And I did see that. I was rapt as many of you were on Friday after Mubarek fled. I found myself having chills and on the verge of tears more than once. It was moving and for all the right reasons.
But there is only one lesson.
The first responsibility leaders have is to the people they lead. That is the one and only lesson. It doesn't matter what one leads. It could be a government, a corporation, a small business, a project, a team, your bridge club.
If people are truly your first priority, then you will see to their needs. If you see to their needs then their morale and motivation will be high, their focus crisp and their loyalty to you and your endeavors unwavering.
There is no other lesson from Egypt.
If you abuse your people, neglect them or simply take them for granted; if you make them less important than anything else; if your priority is advancing your power and position, the work itself, the things you have to do, the bottom line or anything other than your people, then, as a leader, you are dead where you stand.
Morale and motivation will be low, people will be unfocused, disloyal and eventually they will revolt.
People will quit, if not in body, then certainly in mind-resistance in spirit if not with demonstrations in the street. They will become less cooperative and less hungry. There are many such quiet rebellions going on in most organizations across this country today.
And many, if they can, do go further and make their silent resistance visible by quitting.
This is not theory. I've been there and I've seen it. It's costing organizations billions of dollars every year and sometimes their very sustainability.
This is the one lesson.
The UNPD (United Nations Development Program) ranks Egypt 101st out of 169 nations on its 2010 Human Development Index. The HDI measures life expectancy, educational attainment and income. (If you're curious the United States is 4th.) That is why the people rebelled-not the rank, but their condition.
If you want the organization you lead to meet its potential, then see to your people's needs. That is your first responsibility and number one priority. It is the very definition of leadership.
And it's the only lesson from Egypt.
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