You Can Take Up Space…Or Do Something Useful

“Was that John holding the ladder for you?”

“Yes. He was on his way to a meeting, saw me climbing up, and decided to hold it for me while I changed a light bulb.”

“Why were you up there?”

“I was tired of waiting on maintenance to do it.”

“Doesn’t he have more important things to do?”

“Well, I suppose so, but he always seems to have a couple of minutes to do something useful for us. Last week he helped us rearrange the office furniture and the week before he called maintenance to have our water cooler fixed.”

“Did they?”

“Oh, yeah. They were on the scene within an hour.”

Casting vision is an important part of leadership—so is strategy, communication, developing leaders, planning, mission, values, and a thousand or so other things. Most of your employees can’t relate to those things. Their world is one of making ledger entries, scheduling parts, or trying to satisfy unhappy customers. And unlike the leader, their world is also one of broken water coolers and burned out light bulbs—things that are quickly fixed on the executive hallway.

It is really easy for leaders to get so involved in LEADER things that they forget the PEOPLE things. When the leader is in the accounting department, he can take up space and look important…or do something useful. Employees are on the job everyday. Most are trying to do their best. If you do something—however small—that impacts their workspace, they’ll never forget. Your leadership credibility will rise because they know you care and listen.

For crying out loud, it only takes five minutes! Get to it. Today.

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