Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us about the value of using your imagination.
My toddler granddaughter loves to play doctor. She has a toy medical bag with all the necessary equipment that a doctor might use, and often likes to pretend that one of her dolls (or one of her family members) is sick or injured, and she needs to help them get better. She will pull different tools out of the bag so that she can check everything and provide the right treatment, then pronounce that the injured toy, or person, is all better.
In one particular instance, she saw that I had a scrape on one of my knuckles and exclaimed, “Oh no, it hurts!” So, she had me lie down on the floor so she could treat me, and this treatment included a full physical. She checked my blood pressure, tapped my knees with a hammer to check my reflexes, looked in my ears and nose and throat, put a Band-Aid on my knuckle, and listened to my heart with her toy stethoscope. As she was “listening” to my heart, she started, saying, “thump, thump, thump,” but then that changed to “squeak, squeak, squeak.” She told me I had a mouse in my heart, and she had to chase the mouse out of me, so she got some cheese for the mouse to follow.
I am grateful that she is developing the character trait of empathy, but that’s not the primary thing I want to point out with this illustration. What I want to emphasize is the imagination that was at work, on two different levels. First was the role-play as she was pretending to be a doctor. She was doing the things that she imagined a doctor would do, and trying to put herself into that role. And she was doing it with sincerity and enthusiasm. Beyond that, she was also thinking outside of the normal by bringing a mouse problem into the checkup.
Those are two things that we ought to be doing in the leadership of our organizations. First, is that we ought to role-play. I don’t mean by that that we need to pretend to be someone we are not, but rather that we put ourselves in other people’s shoes and try to see things from their perspective. People have different experiences and perspectives, and it is beneficial for us to understand that because that will help us have a better picture of the circumstances, issues, and needs. Second, we ought to explore different ways of thinking about things. It’s easy for us, without realizing it, to see things the way that we always have, through the lens that we have always used. But removing that lens and looking at things from a different angle, even one that might not make sense, can change our perspective and our options.
And that’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from this story of my granddaughter, checking my heart with her toy stethoscope, and hearing a mouse. Too often, our vision is limited because we’re not seeing things from another perspective, and we do what we’ve always done without thinking differently. Sometimes, we need to set aside our normal thought process, see from someone else’s point of view, and be willing to use some imagination and think creatively. In order to grow both personally and organizationally (and, in some cases, find your way past a difficult challenge), you need to be ready and willing to use your imagination.