Tag Archive for: #LessonsonLeadershipfromtheLittleThingsinLife

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 that just because you can do something better than someone else doesn’t always mean that you should.

I have learned a lot about this from the independence of my two-year-old granddaughter. She is at the age and stage when she constantly wants to do things by herself. Just about anything that I am trying to do, from washing the dishes to responding to an email on the computer, she will jump in front of me and insist that she do it. Things that used to be done for her, like putting on socks and shoes, she has now become determined to do on her own. While this is adorable, it also brings challenges. Some of those things she is not yet able to do, and so it can be frustrating for both her and me when she refuses any help or won’t let someone else do it, even though it is something that is beyond her capability to do at this point in time. Other things she is able to do, but it takes a long time to be done, and generally not very neatly, and if I am not intentionally recognizing the importance of her learning in the process, it can be a challenge of patience.

This, then, begs the question of whether or not I should just jump in and take over. If I did, it would avoid the frustrations, and everything would get done quicker and better, with less mess. However, there would also be some incredibly valuable learning opportunities that would be missed. First, she would miss the opportunity to learn from failure. Second, she would miss the opportunity to grow in the struggle. Both of those are necessary in her development if she is going to learn to thrive and succeed well.

The same two things are true for anyone in any kind of work or endeavor, and therefore, they need to help frame the way you view these circumstances:

1. Failure is necessary for learning. When we make it unsafe to fail, people. (and kids) don’t learn from their failures, they don’t gain an understanding of facing and navigating risk, and their ability to handle failure and loss diminishes. If failure is avoided enough times, then any potential obstacle will lead to quitting or defeat.
2. Struggle is necessary for growth. Just like exercising your body or exercising your brain, struggle is required in order to make progress. But struggle doesn’t happen when the task is easy and you don’t have to work at it. That means that initially it’s going to take longer and not be done as well, but as strength and skill increase, so does the outcome.

Having spent over 30 years in education, too often I have seen parents rescue their children from academic or social failure, and what those children learn is that they will never have to experience failure because someone will rescue them. But then the day comes when they do experience failure for the first time, no one is there to rescue them, and they are not equipped to handle it. They would’ve been much better prepared for navigating life successfully if they had been allowed to struggle and fail and experience the frustration and consequences of those things in order to grow and learn.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from my granddaughter forcefully insisting that she needs to try to do something by herself without any help. People need to experience failure so that they can learn from it, and they need to experience struggle so they can grow. Therefore, even if you could do it better, sometimes it is better to let someone else do it, knowing that it will make a mess. Be willing to do that. They will learn, they will grow, and you will both be better served in the long run.

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 reminds us that you don’t always see the significance of your impact.

One of the items on my wife’s bucket list was to see the stars. I don’t mean the stars that you see when you step outside on your back patio and look up at the sky, maybe see the Big Dipper, the North Star, and a few of the other stars in the sky. What I mean is that she wanted to go someplace where you could stand outside at night where there are no other lights, and look up and see hundreds of thousands of stars all across the expanse of the sky. One of the places that we knew was known for that was Big Bend National Park in West Texas, so I was thrilled when we were recently able to take a trip there, so that she would have an opportunity to see the night sky (“The stars at night are big and bright, . . . deep in the heart of Texas!”).

The first two nights that we were there, we couldn’t see anything. The skies were cloudy and overcast both day and night, and as much as we wanted to see the stars, cloud cover kept it from happening. But then the third afternoon, the weather cleared and the clouds moved on. We waited until well after dark, then went outside into the dark night, looked up at the sky, and stared in awe. The expanse of stars across the heavens was absolutely incredible! We could see constellations, planets, and known stars (yes, I was using an app on my phone to help me identify those things), as well as tens of thousands of other dots of light in the sky. Amazingly, we could see the Milky Way. We couldn’t begin to capture the majesty of it in pictures, even though we tried.

One of the things that I realized, besides the awesome magnificence of the Creator of the heavens and earth, was that those same stars had been there the previous two nights; I just had not been able to see them. But just because I couldn’t see them didn’t mean that they were not there. Once the clouds had cleared, I was finally able to see what had been there all along. And that same idea is true of the work you do. You don’t always see the outcome or the impact of what you are doing, but that doesn’t mean something isn’t happening

I can clearly remember the day I received a particular phone call. I was walking my dog outside, and my cell phone rang with a number that I did not recognize, so I answered it (which I don’t normally do). When I said hello, the voice on the other end identified himself as a student I had taught 15 years earlier. He proceeded to recount for me an experience in my class that later led to a conversation I had with him, which he said had changed the trajectory of his life. We had a great conversation, and in the process, I learned that I had made an impact years earlier that I did not even know I had made.

I share this just to be an encouragement to you. If the work that you are doing is the calling that God has placed on your life, and it is work that you are doing to serve others and honor God, and if you are doing it well, you are making an impact. You may not see it in the moment. In fact, you might not see it until years down the road, if at all. I hope that somewhere, sometime, someone lets you know about the impact you have had, just like that student did in his phone call to me, but even if they don’t, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from seeing the stars come out from behind the clouds. Your life and your leadership are making a difference. You are having an influence on others. Right now, you may not know the difference you are making, but like the stars behind the clouds, just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

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 that doing the same thing doesn’t always guarantee the same result.

This lesson became obvious to me recently when I grew out my beard. It wasn’t the first time I had grown the hair on my face. I had grown facial hair in different forms at different times since I was 18 years old, including a mustache, a goatee, and various lengths of beard. But for the last 10 years, I had been clean-shaven. So, when I started growing a beard again, I expected it to look like it had before. It didn’t take long, however, before it became obvious that this time it would be different. This time . . . it was white. Not gray. Not salt-and-pepper white mixed with my hair color. It was completely white. The beard was the same, but the color was not.

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. You’ve probably seen this happen, and likely are guilty of it yourself. You did certain things or exhibited certain behaviors, and the result was a mess. But then, for some reason, you did the same thing again, and the result was the same mess. And it makes sense that this happens because the same actions tend to lead to the same results. But my beard was evidence that this is not always the case.

Sometimes doing the same thing does not guarantee the same result. That’s because life brings changes and differences. As time passes, there are lots of different factors that can shift or change, leading to a different outcome. It reminds me of the original Jurassic Park movie, where Jeff Goldblum‘s character is describing chaos theory by dropping a little drop of water on top of his knuckle, and explaining how tiny variations can change the outcome in unexpected ways. Similarly, that was the case with my beard. My face is the same, and the hair that grows on my face still grows the same way, but time and age caused the color to change. So even though I grew the same beard that I’ve grown in the past, it was not the same! It made me realize that differences in age, time, circumstances, and contexts can produce different results.

I experienced this in my leadership practice when I left a school where I had served for nearly 10 years as a teacher, guidance counselor, and assistant principal, to go to a new school in another state as the Head of School. I had, what were in my mind, brilliant ideas based on some things that had been a huge success in the school that I came from. But when I tried to implement them in the new school, I was met with resistance, and a definite lack of enthusiasm. I tried to do the same things, but in a different context, and I got a different result. I learned in that experience that the same thing doesn’t work the same way everywhere, and that I needed to do different things based on where I was.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from growing my beard but finding that it was a different color. Doing the same thing doesn’t always lead to the same results. You need to be aware of the differences that can affect what the outcome might be, learn to take those into consideration, and adjust your actions based on the context and circumstances. While it is true that sometimes doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity, at other times it’s insanity to expect the same result. Because doing the same thing is not a guarantee of the same result.

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’s about lessons on leadership I learned by losing 50 pounds.

For over twenty years, I had stayed in the same 20-pound weight range. I had tried a variety of diets and exercise regimens, but nothing ever moved me out of that range, nor had any of them ever become a long-term lifestyle. I convinced myself that I simply had a stocky build, and even had a sense of pride about my larger size. And I believed that I was much healthier than I actually was. But then I was confronted with the realization that I was very overweight, out of shape, and unhealthy. My doctor had to prescribe medications to treat the effects of my poor health, and a family member confronted me about my overeating. I realized that I was endangering not only my own life, but also the care and well-being of my family.

It was then that I embarked on a journey that (literally) changed me into a different person. I changed some of my eating behaviors, incorporated several tools to help me maintain a daily awareness, and gradually implemented moderate exercise. The results shocked me – I consistently lost several pounds a week, losing a total of 50 pounds in just under four months to reach my goal weight. My greatest moment of joy came when I was able to once again wear the leather bomber jacket that my wife had given me at our wedding 26 years ago. As I traveled along this journey, I began to identify reasons why I was succeeding this time, when I had tried so many times before without the same results. What I saw was that there were certain specific behaviors important to my success, behaviors that kept me going and produced consistent results. After I reached my goal and reflected back on those behaviors, I realized that not only did they help me accomplish that weight-loss goal, but they also represented some very valuable and practical lessons on leadership. So, here are five lessons on leadership I learned by losing 50 pounds:

• Everyone wants to know your secret. After it started becoming noticeable that I was losing weight, people would ask me what are doing to lose weight, typically for one of two reasons: 1) they were looking for a trick, something easy and simple that they could do to also lose weight but without a lot of effort; or 2) they wanted to know what I had done so that they could do exactly the same thing and get the same results. The same thing happens in leadership. People will read books or attend seminars so they can copy someone else’s pattern or uncover the secret. But there is no secret, and if you try to be someone else, you are not being authentic and genuine.
• There are only a few core behaviors. It should not be a surprise that my weight loss and fitness really boiled down to diet, exercise, and a handful of core behaviors. It started with making better food choices and exercising in moderation. I found and added a couple of other accountability behaviors that worked for me, and the result was consistent, noticeable weight loss. Again, the same is true for leadership. There are lots of principles, theories, and ideas on leadership; far too many for any one person to use. But there are certain core principles and behaviors that show up in leadership research over and over. You need to learn, understand, and apply those core behaviors, and to use them in a way that matches who you are.
• It requires discipline and effort. There was no simple trick to my weight loss and fitness change. It took hard work, and one of the most important things I did was to keep moving forward, exercising when I didn’t feel like it, and resisting the urge to eat what I shouldn’t. Likewise, leadership is not easy. It requires discipline and effort, and there are times when you want to quit, but you must steel yourself to keep going, to not give in to those pressures. Keep doing what needs to be done. Keep leading, and keep leading in the right way.
• Moderation is essential. I knew that if I had jumped right into an intensive workout routine, it wouldn’t last. So I started with a little bit and made incremental increases. By the time I reached my goal weight, I had very gradually worked up to a moderate but consistent level. It worked because I didn’t overcommit at the beginning, and I made incremental, manageable improvements. Effective leadership understands that moderation is a key to success. If you overcommit your energy and resources before you’ve built up stamina and strength, you will run out of gas. Be balanced in your approach.
• It needs to be enjoyable. I eliminated unhealthy and artificial products, but I also ate food that tasted good and treated myself with some things that I thoroughly enjoy, but I ate them in moderation (see point 4, above). While eating healthy and natural, I also ate food that I could enjoy eating, and allowed myself rewards and treats because I knew that denying them completely would likely result in overindulgence if, or when, I gave in. In the same way, the work of leadership needs to be enjoyable. That doesn’t mean that it will easy, but you should be getting a sense of satisfaction from the work you are doing. So you need to find enjoyment in it, and you need to provide rewards along the way.

There’s one other lesson I learned, a bonus lesson, but it’s not actually a separate lesson; rather, it is a lesson that is woven through the other five. The bonus lesson is this: It has to be sustainable. All the work I had done would have been fruitless if, six months later, it was not something I could have maintained. Your leadership style and practice need to match who you are while focusing on core behaviors with incremental improvement, and it needs to bring you joy. Therefore, these five lessons, and the ideas they represent, have to be applied in a way that makes them sustainable. Don’t try to do things in a way that you can’t keep up, because you won’t.

I am in a much healthier place in my life now. In the process of getting there, but along the way, I also found some principles that transfer to a healthy approach to leadership. Ultimately, this change in my life that made me better also made me a better leader. There is no secret. Start with key core behaviors of good leadership, work hard, be balanced, and find joy. Do these things, and you will cultivate healthy and sustainable leadership.