I’m already ruminating on additions to my recent entry into the Commonplace Book, entitled “The Second Shoe.” This piece has earned a lot of attention since I distributed it at the start of the week. If you haven’t read it or want to refresh your understanding of it, go to My Writings and click on The Commonplace Book. Look for Second Shoe.

A leadership lesson that I omitted was the importance of an energy source for your followers. Because the Second Shoe emerges from the second stage or wave of a major economic decline, it’s very probably that followers will not have access to extra resources to do what needs to be done. In other words, they will lack an energy source–physical capital will be limited, human capital will be stretched, and financial capital will be tight. Followers will need energy and these three sources of it will not provide it freely.

As the leader, you will have to find energy elsewhere for your followers. That may be you, or more likely and more healthily, you in tandem with your followers. Inspiration, motivation, inner resilience, persistence, patience, non-material gratification, and many more will be the forms of energy that you and your followers must find and use.

Everything requires energy, and with the Second Shoe, you as the leader must be creative and resourceful in linking your followers to energy.