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DO YOU THINK YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
When you first look in the mirror in the morning, do you say to yourself, “Today, I’m going to change the world!”?
Probably not.
And yet we do change history every day, not just for ourselves but for our families, communities, employers, and country. Some of the ways we effect change are significant: landing a huge account, raising money for charity, helping to coach a youth soccer team. Others are small: letting someone merge ahead of us in traffic, taking an interest in a colleague who needs someone to listen. But none are trivial.
I’m not suggesting that simple acts of courtesy in and of themselves constitute acts of leadership. Yet leaders, untitled or otherwise, realize the extraordinary impact they can have on others and the world around them. They consciously choose to exercise their abilities, skills, and knowledge to help make a difference.
WHAT IS IT YOU WANT?
Professor of sociology and speaker Tony Campolo claims that if you ask most parents what they want for their children, they will say they want their children to be happy.
Campolo goes on to say that he grew up in a home where his father didn’t care if he was happy. You see, his father wanted more for his children than just to be happy. He wanted each of them to be good, to be an ethical person who makes a positive contribution. Sometimes that requires hard work and self-sacrifice, putting another’s needs ahead of your own. These are things that might not, in the short term, make us “happy.” But they do help us to do good and make a difference. Being happy is enviable, but being good is truly admirable. It requires character, integrity, and perseverance.
Sometimes being “good” isn’t aiming high enough. As Erwin McManus, the pastor of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles, said, “We spend so much time worrying about our kids being good–not breaking the rules, getting into trouble, and basically behaving–that we often forget to invite them to be great.”
In fact, I define true leadership as “an invitation to greatness that we extend to others.” There is a catch, though. We can’t give what we don’t have. We can’t extend an invitation we haven’t already accepted.
At a recent convention, a member of the association sponsoring the event volunteered to work as backstage manager and assist with everything that happened behind the scenes at the general sessions. Because Rick was busy preparing between general sessions, he gave up the chance to attend most of the sessions during the conference. He didn’t receive any payment, other than the appreciation of the association leaders, and he still paid a full registration fee for his attendance.
He was an example of one of the many who serve as untitled leaders, who handle the necessary but often unglamorous jobs that need to be done.
Volunteers for important or high-profile tasks are never in short supply. While I don’t want to shortchange the importance of “the big show,” I am even more impressed by the leaders who know what must be done behind the scenes to make the big show happen. They take on difficult and time-consuming assignments not because they want to be praised or noticed but just because those tasks have to be done. As a result, everyone benefits.
The reality is that we all work “backstage” in our lives at times. Real leaders bring the same commitment to excellence to whatever they do, whether on the stage or behind it.
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Excerpted from You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader by Mark Sanborn Copyright © 2006 by Mark Sanborn. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday Business, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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