The Spider’s Guide To Leadership

Dennis McIntee is passionate about helping leaders develop their coaching skills. He keynotes frequently at leadership seminars as well as appearing in magazines, newspapers, trade journals, and on national radio and TV. He is the author of The 8 Qualities of Drama Free Teams: Do More. Stress Less. Zero Drama.

It was a passionate plea from my lovely wife: “There’s a spider in the garage. Come out here and kill it!”

And since I’m the king of my castle and I’m her knight in shining armor, I thought, “No spider is going to enter my domain. My home is my castle and I’m going to take care of this creature right away.”  Truthfully, I’m about as scared of spiders as my wife, so when I entered our garage I made sure I grabbed the longest broom we had and went after the evil spider.

Being careful not to get too close, I stabbed and jabbed at it, but unfortunately, despite my best efforts, he scampered away and ended up somewhere underneath our freezer.  Since I wasn’t able to kill him, I did the next best thing.  I cleaned up the web, not leaving a trace of his presence.  I thought the episode was over.

Unfortunately, the very next day while in the garage, I looked up in the corner to find another web.  That spider had produced another web.  As I was looking up, it hit me.  In many ways, achievers live their lives just like spiders.

If a spider’s web is destroyed, it will simply produce another one.

People that achieve live in the same manner.  Just like a spider, if something happens to it’s web, it gets right to work building another.  Achievers produce because they get busy every day building their businesses.  They don’t blame or complain.  Even if they’ve been building their web for years and something destroys it, they simply get back to work, building another one.  You don’t fail because you get knocked down.  You fail if you don’t get back up, just like a spider.

A spider’s web is determined by what’s inside, not external circumstances.

A spider’s home comes from what’s inside him.  It’s not dependent on external factors, it simply produces it’s web, whether it’s pouring down rain or a bright sunny day.  Every day, all day, it spins it’s web.  Achievers do the same.  They don’t look at outward circumstances.  Just like a spider, they get to work producing.  When you believe your success is dependent on external circumstances, it causes you to try to manipulate situations and sometimes even people.  You begin to think, “If I can just meet so-and-so, they will make my dreams come true.”  It’s a fallacy that keeps you in mediocrity.  You live your life from the inside out, just like a spider.

What a spider produces is determined by who it is.

When asked, “Why do spiders spin webs?”, the simplest answer is:  Because it’s a spider.  Dogs bark not because they are cats, but because they are dogs.  Like produces like.  What you do flows from who you are.  The quickest way to grow your business is to begin growing you because your external circumstances are a result of your internal reality.  When you become better, your business gets better.