Leadership Earned by "The First American"

As I mentioned before, Benjamin Franklin’s voice as a Founding Father didn’t carry such significant weight because of any particular position he held, although he did make a significant impact in several different roles. His influence was largely something he earned throughout the course of his life.

As I looked for specific articles detailing his leadership strengths and characteristics, I found an excellent video of a talk called Benjamin Franklin: Leader Extraordinaire that was given by Gleaves Whitney at Grand Valley State University in September 2011. While I’ll touch on a few things he covered, I really believe you’d get value from watching the entire thing!

Whitney emphasized Franklin’s humble beginnings and how the combination of ambition and discipline served as a foundation for so much of the success he achieved in business (retiring in his early 40s), as an inventor and writer, and as one of the most notable proponents of the freedoms we enjoy today in his later years. Not only did Ben have a strong work ethic as a teen working for a printer, he constantly pushed himself to outperform those around him - both in the physical tasks required in the position but also with how he used his time when he wasn’t working. Despite only having two years of formal schooling, Franklin’s drive and curiosity led to him being one of the most prominent thinkers of the time. Whitney even shared a story of how he learned to swim by studying a French book - when he couldn’t speak or read French!

That same drive, curiosity, and work ethic resulted in him building significant wealth relatively early in life. As Postmaster, he built a system that was so efficient and profitable that he essentially controlled the market for printing and delivering mail on behalf of the government throughout the colonies. (We sure could use someone like that in the USPS today, huh!) Interestingly enough, Franklin didn’t view his wealth of accumulating more power but as a way he could benefit those around him. In fact, he refused to receive payment of any kind for several of his inventions to ensure the general public would have access to things like the lightning rod that’s still helping to prevent loss of lives and homes more than 200 years later.

While Franklin’s drive, work ethic, ambition, imagination, and self-discipline all contributed to the influence he earned throughout his life, he certainly wasn’t infallible. Truth be told, one of his mistakes led to him being referred to as “The First American” so we’ll pick up there next time as we look at how intent he was to learn from things he didn’t get right on the first attempt.