Who Said That?

If you have worked in a company where there is a strong, iconic leader as CEO, you will immediately identify with this statement (you fill in the blank of the name of the CEO): "_______ said..."  I have worked in more than one of these companies, and if the statements and proclamations that were attributed to the CEO were actually true, then that CEO wouldn't have had any time to do anything else but sit around and just talk about things from all over the business.  I used to like to challenge the attributions by asking, "When did he say that?" and "Did you personally hear him say that?"  Usually, it was hearsay, conjecture, or more often than not, a convenient attribution to help someone make their own point, or more simply said, a lie. 

We do this at work and we see it happen in the press from our political leaders and then we carry these false statements into our workplaces and our homes.  Why do we do it and more importantly, why do we think that we have to have a quote from the top to decide to agree or disagree one something?  This is our world.  In business and life there are more followers than leaders and the fear of making our own declarations that could be wrong force us into trying to figure out what the top is thinking and saying before we make our own moves. 

It is dangerous and deadly to a company when we have to stop and hear what the top, or the next rung up the ladder says about something before we come to our own statement and point of view.