Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Know Your Limits
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’s a great reminder that we need to know our limits.
Once again, this is a story from my granddaughter, who is at the age where she is constantly making comments that are humorous, but also reflect a more profound truth, even though she doesn’t realize that’s what she’s doing. In this situation, she had gotten out a lot of her toys and was playing with them, but then she wanted to get out more toys, and she started to dump them out on top of the toys that were already out. Her mom stopped her, told her that before she could get out the additional toys to play with, first she had to put away the toys that she was done playing with. She stood in the middle of the room, looked around at all the toys that needed to be picked up, and said, “I’m just a little guy, I need help!”
Now, I know that part of the reason why she said that was because she is a toddler, and so she wanted someone else to pick it up. Part of it was also that she was overwhelmed by what she saw when she looked around. And then part of it was that she really did need some help. That acknowledgment on her part (that she needed help) is a great reminder to us, which is that we need to recognize our own limitations.
When I was younger, I was often afraid to ask for help because I thought that it was a sign of weakness, and so I would try to figure out how to do things on my own. That often resulted in either being overwhelmed or messing things up. Because I did not know how to do everything, and there were others who knew things that I did not, if I had only admitted my own limitations and learned to ask for and accept the help from others who could do things that I could not do, it would’ve been much better. However, I was afraid that admitting my limitations was a mark of failure.
The reality of life and leadership has taught me that it is not failure; it is, in fact, an important skill to be able to recognize where your skill is lacking. We all have areas of strength, but we also all have our own limitations. We need to recognize that, and learn to accept what our limitations are. You can work at overcoming, or at least improving on those limitations, but you still have them. When you can do that, and you can do it with humility, then you will be able to receive the help that you need.
That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from my granddaughter’s simple little comment about eating help. We all have our own limitations, and we need to acknowledge those so that we can get the help we need when we need it. I can’t do everything, and neither can you. So, know your limits.
