No-Turning-Back

In customizing my module on leadership in the 1721 smallpox epidemic in Boston, I came across a point that resonates ever deeply with me the more I think about it. It is this–there are some changes in direction so profound that they constitute a no-turning-back moment. You are presented with a situation and one particular choice you can make will certainly mean there is no turning back. Other choices available at the time don’t have that same impact; just one particular choice does. What does it take for a leader to make a no-turning-back choice? History is full of these dramatic moments and the subsequent stories about what happened when….