Is There Ever Enough to Go Around?

Whether we’re supervising a department, managing an entire facility, or running a business of our own, there’s never a shortage of demands on our time! And let’s face it, doing anything that even comes close to making the lasting impact that positive leadership can have with our team members can often turn into one of those ideas that sounds good in theory but is really tough to squeeze in…

Ed Mylett closed his segment of the 2021 Live2Lead event by sharing the significance of what he saw his father do just hours before he passed away to drive home the idea of The Power of One More, which he recently published as a book. His point was that we often underestimate how much impact we can have on any one person’s life and that making time just one more time can have a ripple effect we never fully grasp - on that specific individual, their circle of friends & family, as well as anyone who may be watching us in that moment. 

In his book, Know What You’re FOR, Jeff Henderson (another one of the 2021 LIve2Lead speakers) tells a story of something he emphasized at each church he pastored over the years and how doing that one thing led to growth in each of those churches. Jeff explained that, just like leaders in any other field, the folks responsible for reaching out to and welcoming new visitors at the church often have very limited time to interact with each visitor the way they’d really like to. Jeff understood that he’d never have enough folks in that particular role to do it all so he stressed that they each “do for one what they wished they could do for everyone.” As simple as that may sound, it definitely carried the lasting impact of positive leadership, by making a great impression with each person they interacted with directly but also with everyone else close enough to see what was going on.

Since sharing the ideas we looked at in The Impact of Positive Leadership and What’s It Worth To You?, I’ve traded a few more messages with my retired USMC friend that detailed the impact he knew he was making in his current role with Veterans Services for the Virginia Employment Commission. In one of those messages, Alex told me about what he learned as the “Strategic Corporal” concept. He said that “If you tell a young Marine how much his or her actions can have an impact on the world stage and by extension the entire Marine Corps and their career, they'll pay attention. The last thing you want to do as a Marine is let down the foxhole mate to your left or to your right in a firefight. The next to the last thing after that is taint or soil the reputation that Marines before you built for the Marine Corps.” Cindy and I cover a similar idea in a complimentary session we offer periodically in a webinar format called Building Buy-In Around a Clear Mission & Vision; when we help our team members understand the importance of each thing they’re responsible for in their role, finding time or energy to engage at an even higher level is nearly automatic!

When we really reflect on the lasting impact we can have by providing positive leadership to our teams, the time to make a difference just once more is so much easier to find for us too! Moving forward, we’ll start looking at some specific positive leadership qualities we can embrace, some examples of positive leaders throughout history, and the tangible benefits we can expect to see from building those qualities into our organizational culture!