Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Set the Stage
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 the neccessity of setting the stage for success.
I was playing with my granddaughter in her room, and as we played, she would pick a toy to play with, bring it to me, and we would play with it for a while. After a little bit of time, she would go back to her closet and pick out another toy to bring to me. At one point in that process, she brought out a little toy car dashboard, with a steering wheel that turns, a horn that honks, a blinker switch, and other noises that it would make. Before she could play with it, however, it needed to be turned on, so she handed it to me so that I could do that for her because she couldn’t do it by herself. Once I had turned it on, she sat down with this toy and played with it for quite a while. This simple act of handing it to me to turn it on before she could play with it reminded me of a great leadership lesson.
She was at an age when a lot of development and learning was happening, but she still needed help. There were things she had learned to do (and was continuing to learn), but there were also things with which she needed help doing. That’s a normal part of the growth process. That’s also why there are things that children are not able to do until they reach a certain age and/or stage of development (like driving an actual car, not just playing with a toy car dashboard!). So I had to “set the stage” for her learning and growth. I had to do something that she was not yet able to do by herself, because her little fingers couldn’t open the latch to get to the on/off switch. After I had done that, she was able to take full advantage of the toy.
This is a great illustration of something that happens between you and the people you lead. If you are a good leader, you already know that learning and growth is a continual, lifelong process. Part of your responsibility is to help facilitate that growth. But because it is a process, most people likely don’t already know everything they need to know; and if they are inexperienced and early in that growth process, they definitely don’t know everything they need to know. Therefore, for you to help facilitate their growth, you often need to set the stage for their learning and success.
That might look like equipping them with resources; providing boundaries, limitations, and guidance; putting some things in place ahead of time; modeling or demonstrating what needs to be done; or pointing them to examples that they can follow. Regardless of how it happens, you need to ensure the same underlying idea: that you are setting them up for their best opportunity for learning, growth, and success.
That’s the leadership lesson you can take from this little thing in life, from this story of my granddaughter needing me to turn on a toy for her before she could play with it. Do you want to help your people succeed (and by extension, help yourself succeed)? Then prepare the way. Instead of being an obstacle or inhibitor to their learning, be a facilitator. Do things that you can do to set them up for success, not for failure. In other words, you need to set the stage.
