Too often people spend time trying to define leadership because once defined and therefore compartmentalized and as a result, an ability to be commercialized. These may be useful and important means of bringing leadership to large groups of people, but run the risk of becoming a trap.
We spend more time trying to define and debate leadership rather than “just do it” – “make yourself useful, man!”
Yet there is often a value judgment attached:
“Make yourself useful, man!”…. “…but of WHAT use?”
On a business trip back in 2002, I took a taxi, and I started a conversation with the taxi driver. I was going to Boston for a competitive intelligence program. As we were nearing the Charles river, the taxi driver told me that he was an engineer in India. He came here to the US, and worked in information technology (IT) for a while, but after 9-11 (2001), he got laid off. To support himself he drove a cab.
Now, most would jump into this with a value judgment. “Oh, what a waste! To think that an engineer is now driving a cab.” One would even ask where leadership opportunities may exist for a taxi driver shuttling business travelers and party-goers back-and-forth in the city.
I asked the taxi driver, “what was the most memorable passenger you had?”
He said, “it was the man who came into my cab and then put a gun to my head.” The young man who held the gun was desperate. He was out of work, living with his elderly mother, and about to be evicted from his apartment. He was robbing the taxi driver for rent and food money.
The taxi driver convinced the young man to make another choice: they drove to the cash ATM machine, where the taxi driver withdrew a few hundreds dollars in cash for the man. Then they drove to the Charles river where the man thew the gun into the river. The man promised the taxi driver to pay him back… and he did. They became friends.
This former-engineer-former-IT-professional-turned-taxi-driver made one of the most tangible differences any human being can make: he saved a young man’s life and in turn, probably saved his own life.
You never know how you will be used as an instrument of leadership, and what you’ll be doing when you’re presented the opportunity. Therefore, as long as you look for ways to be “of use”, ignore people who judge your “usefulness” based on their narrow definitions of purpose and usefulness.
You never know how you get to save someone’s life, or your own.
Jane Chin
About this post: I participate in several online leadership and executive discussion groups. This is my response to one of the discussion topics. Since I think it may be of interest to my readers, I’m sharing my responses here.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Elsewhere, Kwai commented about my post thus:
There is no implication that the taxi driver isn’t indeed doing everything he can to make more use of his talent. Just like those of us who may find ourselves laid off either by accident or by design, we may not have immediate control over what our environment / economy throws at us, but we have complete control over our response to what is given.
My aim of the story, therefore, is as a reminder that no matter where we find ourselves, as long as we keep in mind that we remain “of use”, we will look for a way to still make a difference even as we continue to take action toward our “desired method” of potentially making a bigger difference.
But, as my conclusion to the story warns, so many of us have been socially conditioned to judging whether one may be “useful” in certain vocations or situations, that some of us internalize that judgment, and as a result, spend more time in internal dialog about the woes of our situation rather than freeing up that mental energy and become receptive to opportunities to make a difference.
Jane Chin
Hi Jane,
For me “to be of use” are words of wisdom I often hear from my mentor. According to him our purpose in life should be “to be of use to others selflessly”. This principle must be our quest in life and manifest in all our actions at work and in our homes. I was thrilled to find this post on your blog and your explanations too are sound. Thank you.
Regards,
Dilip
Thank you for your feedback, Dilip!
An optimal state would be in a purpose that would allow one to both serve others and in turn, experience joy within. Then, one’s “self-fulfilling” actions simultaneously benefit others.
Jane