Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: The Full Picture
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 a lesson about the complete picture of leadership.
My wife and I were reminiscing about some of our experiences together over the years, and because it was our anniversary, that included (like it does every anniversary!) remembering when and where we first met. We first met on an international school trip when we were seniors in high school. I was from Michigan and she was from Florida, so it is unlikely we ever would have met if this had not happened. The schools that we traveled with were two Christian schools that partnered together to travel to Europe for a senior trip. The first time I ever saw my wife was when we got on the tour bus in Brussels, Belgium, to start the trip. Although this was more than 40 years ago, I can still clearly see in my mind‘s eye the moment she got on the bus, and I was awestruck and thought that she was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen in my life. By God‘s grace and providence, we learned that we would be attending the same college, where we became close friends and eventually dated and got married.
As we were reminiscing on this anniversary and talking about our memories from the trip, my wife was looking at her album that had her pictures from the trip, and asked me to get out mine. The reason she wanted to look at both was that she wanted to relive all the memories with me, and I had taken pictures of all the beautiful sites and places, while she had taken pictures of all the people and activities. Because of our different personalities and natures, we had focused on different things when we took pictures on that trip. When combined, however, the result was a full picture, which included the beautiful sites we saw, the people we spent time with, and the activities we did.
This reminded me of one of my favorite marriage quotes, from the Sylvester Stallone movie, “Rocky.” At some point in the movie, Paulie (Rocky’s best friend) is having a conversation with Rocky in a meat locker. Paulie is asking Rocky what he sees in Adrian (Paulie’s sister), and gives a straightforward question when he asks, “What’s the attraction?” Here’s the line I love, which I think is incredibly profound: Rocky replies by saying, “I don’t know, she fills gaps, I guess. . . She’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.” This is true for my wife and me in our marriage, but the same principle can also be applied to leadership. No one person fills all the gaps in a leadership role. A good leader will know this and will use their strengths to maximize their leadership style, but will tap into the strengths of others to fill the gaps.
That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from two photo albums of the same trip, with two completely different kinds of pictures. You do some things well, and other things not so well. Therefore, it is important to know your gifts and strengths, and to use those well. But also know the gaps caused by the things that are not your strength, and allow others to fill in those gaps. If you will be both wise enough and humble enough to do this, the result will be a more complete picture of leadership.
