Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: You Have Imitators

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. When we see or hear or experience something from which we can learn, it is that example and experience that often helps us remember the lesson. 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. And so I am sharing examples of circumstances and stories that I have experienced in my everyday life, which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those stories, and it is an important reminder that you have imitators.

We were sitting down to eat breakfast together on a Saturday morning, and our grandchildren were sitting there with us. When we eat together, my granddaughter likes to sit next to my wife and eat what she is eating. Meanwhile, my grandson was sitting next to me, and he had some fried spam on his plate because that is one of his favorite breakfast foods. As we were talking and laughing, my wife looked over and asked, “Is he eating his spammy spam?” He answered, yes, but then my granddaughter chimed in and said: “I’m eating my muffin muffin!” We laughed because it was cute, but it was also a reminder of how much she was paying attention to everything my wife said and did, so that she could imitate her.

Early in my marriage, my wife made a comment to my mother about how much I wiggled my feet when I was going to sleep, and that this would keep her from falling asleep. My mother responded by telling my wife that my dad did the same thing. Years later, my dad came to visit a school where I worked, and he left my office to walk around the campus. After a while, a teacher (who had never met my dad) walked into my office and asked if my dad happened to be visiting, because he saw someone walking around that walked just like me. I could think of many more examples, but they all do the same thing: they illustrate our tendency to imitate the people who are close to us.

That’s an important truth to which you need to pay attention. The people that you spend time with, and the people who look up to you, will tend to imitate what you say and what you do. That includes the people that you work with. Therefore, you must pay attention to the example you are giving them to follow. More specifically, there are two significant truths that you need to pay attention to:

1. People are watching you and will imitate what they hear you say and what they see you do. I happen to believe they are going to imitate what they see you do even more than what they hear you say, but both of these underscore the importance of your example (and this is why my dad would say, “Your walk talks, and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.”). Regardless, you need to understand that they will imitate you.
2. They will likely take it to the next level. When my kids were young, I remember hearing someone say that what we do in moderation, our children will do in excess. The same idea is true for you in your leadership. The people who imitate you will do what you did to a greater extent and extreme, which, again, underscores the importance of your example.

What this means is that you need to be intentional and aware about who is ahead of you and who is behind you. You need to realize that you are imitating someone, and that others are imitating you. The apostle Paul conveyed this same idea in 1 Corinthians 11:1 when he said, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from my granddaughter imitating my wife. Whether you realize it or not, and whether you want them to or not, people will imitate your example. They will use the words you use, in the way that you use them. They will do the things you do, in the way that you do them. Therefore, knowing that you will always have your own imitators, be intentional about the example you provide. Because the example you provide is what they will follow.