Posts

,

Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: First, Get the Whole Story

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those stories.

It was a normal day and I was driving in normal traffic. The light turned red up ahead, so I stopped and was waiting at the stoplight behind a long line of cars. There wasn’t any kind of urgency on my part, and I wasn’t trying to get somewhere by a particular time, but when the light turned green and nobody seemed to be going, I started to get a little frustrated. I started having those thoughts in my head like, “Oh come on, why isn’t anyone going, get moving people!“ But then I saw and heard an emergency vehicle approaching the intersection, one that I had not been able to see and hear from where I was in the line of cars. There was a reason why no one was moving, but because of my vantage point, I was not initially aware of that reason, and I allowed it to affect my attitude and my response. Immediately, I realized that the lack of movement was justified, and the problem was simply that I did not have all the information.

The next thing that came to my mind was the recognition that this was a tremendous example for life and leadership. God always has a plan and a purpose, but we don’t always see what he is doing, nor do we see the end intended down the road. We can be quick to react and jump to conclusions without knowing the whole story, and when that happens, it can affect our mood and our behavior, and can cause damage or lead to poor decision-making.

It made me think of Proverbs 18:13, which says, “He who answers the matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.” I first wrote this verse down to keep on my desk when I was doing marriage and family counseling years ago, as a reminder to listen to both sides of the story and to try to get the whole picture before preparing a plan. Then I used the same verse for years in my roles in education with student issues, parent issues, and employee issues, again to remind me to try to hear the whole story before jumping to conclusions and making a decision. I have been guilty of responding too quickly before I knew the information that I needed to know, and it has never gone well. Just like sitting at that traffic light, jumping to a conclusion in my own mind about what was happening before I knew all the information caused me to have the wrong conclusion, which in turn affected my response and behavior.

So, the lesson on leadership that was illustrated in this little life event is the importance of pausing to get the whole story before jumping to a conclusion. First, find out what happened (and if it involves people, be sure to hear all sides) and then determine what your next steps need to be. And always be humble enough to allow for the fact that God may be doing something for a reason, and He just wants you to trust Him without getting ahead of His plan. The lesson on leadership from this little thing in life? First, get the whole story.

/by

Podcast Episode 10 – First Get the Whole Story

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article on the same topic: First Get the Whole Story. Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you ever been guilty of jumping to a conclusion before having all the information, and then regretting your response?  I have, and on today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore.  There’s a verse in Proverbs, chapter 18 and verse 13, that speaks to this topic when it says, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.”  Therefore, I want to take a few minutes to talk about the importance of hearing before answering, to avoid the folly and shame that comes when we do the opposite.

  I have probably been most guilty of doing this to my own children. Usually, it looks something like this:  I hear a noise, or I see a mess, and I immediately jump to conclusions about what my child must have done or said, and I react.  Too many times, that response has been followed by learning that I answered before hearing the whole story, and my response was wrong.  A great example of this is one carried out by my father to me when I was a young teenager, and one that I would tease him about for years afterward.  In this situation, my elementary school-aged sister was playing with her dolls and her dollhouse and asked me to play with her, with her dolls.  I was doing something else at the moment, so I told her I couldn’t.  Unbeknownst to me, she then went to my dad and told him a story of how I had said very mean and hurtful things to her.  He came into the room and proceeded to give me a painful consequence, catching me by surprise.  It was only afterward that he heard my side of the story and had to apologize for reacting wrongly to me.

Now, my dad was a wonderful father, so don’t judge him for this unless you can say unequivocally that you have never jumped to a conclusion, made wrong assumptions, and reacted differently than you should have before hearing the whole story.  But this is often our natural tendency, and it takes intentional work to exercise the discipline of seeking the whole truth and the full story.  And that’s what we should be doing in every context and situation: setting aside our preconceived bias and beliefs, seeking to hear and learn the full story, and then determining the best response.

As a leader, this needs to characterize our responses. I know that there are situations that require a quick and decisive response, but hopefully, your leadership experience has equipped you to be prepared to respond to those kinds of situations out of your breadth of leadership when you don’t have time to gather more information in the moment.  I also know that if we can be too slow sometimes, taking the time to gather so much detail that it paralyzes momentum.  But in most cases, you need to take some time to get the whole picture before formulating the right response.  I can tell you, in my role as a school administrator, when I had to discipline student behavior, I never regretted carefully getting the whole story first.

So here’s what you need to take away:  It is important to gather all the facts and information, as much as is reasonably possible, before determining your response.  This applies to addressing conflicts between people, determining strategic next steps in a plan, or responding to a challenge you are facing.  

So, I will circle back to the verse I started with:  “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.”  If we don’t learn to look before we leap, or listen before we respond, we will likely make decisions that lead to messes that we have to clean up, and apologies that we need to make.  Therefore, when you are confronted with a situation that you need to address . . . first, get the whole story.

/by