Leadership in records and who it has to be.

One of the things that I hear often from people in records, is frustration that people "won't do the right thing."

Generally it comes with an ask about getting someone else to come and make them do what we want them to.

This is happening, because we're trying to get people to do something that they don't want to do.

And we can't get support for it, from the people who have the authority to compel others.

I think this is a values problem.

We value things that other people don't.

At some point, we have to consider whether those values are the right ones, because no one is coming to save us.

Anything we are going to get done, has to be done by us.

This is the essence of leadership.

The trick of leadership, is to recognise that people will follow you when they think that what you're doing is going to deliver on what they want.

If they're not following you, they don't believe.

Clearly, there can be two problems here.

First - you could just be communicating poorly.

And that's fixable.

The second, is that you're just not delivering on things they want, in a way that they feel is worth their effort.

Both problems are fixable.

The stronger act of leadership, is to realise that if you can't get people to follow you, you're just wandering around on your own.

If you've ever been in a large organisation surrounded by people and felt lonely and frustrated, there's a good chance that this is you.

When you're feeling like this, there's a cost benefit - keep going, or change what you're doing.

You're the only person who can make that choice.

But for me, records has been wandering around on its own for many years now, and all I see happening is that records teams are being replaced by data teams.

No one is coming to save us.

It has to be us that changes.