I had a colleague who hated Chinese proverbs. "The cliched of the most cliched" he used to say. Transfer to a workshop for local business leaders where during a presentation I showed this slide. Some of the more crusty delegates seemed somewhat confused. A School Headteacher who was attending, was not only significantly agitated, but was also personally offended.
The link to leadership and leadership teams was then alluded to. A true leader attending then threw the presenter a killer question "is it actually true that a fish after a few days actually start rotting from their head?". The audience could sense my discomfort as I was not categorically in a position to provide evidence that fish do in fact start decomposing from their heads. The assembled seemed reassured that organisational rotting did not always start at the leadership end.