Tag Archive for: #leadershipezra

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 examples, and it teaches us something about responding to crises.

We had a great lesson in this when a UPS driver delivered a package to our house in the middle of the day. When he left it at the front door, he rang the doorbell. My two-year-old and five-year-old grandchildren were in the house, and when the doorbell rang, three things immediately happened: the dog barked loudly, one grandchild ran to our room and dove on the bed and under the covers, while the other one ran yelling to the front door. My wife jokingly commented that we have one who runs away from danger and one who runs toward it!

I can also remember in my first experience as a head of school (one that was in partnership with a church), when I would meet with the church leaders every week as part of the leadership team. Over time, when we would discuss issues that we would face or items that would require a decision, a pattern began to emerge, which was that one of the pastors would immediately jump to his answer, and then talk it through out loud, and often by the end of his conversation, he was at a different place than he was at the beginning. The other two pastors would jump in after a little bit and start to dialogue back-and-forth. I would be thinking and processing about the issue, and listening to what everyone else was saying, but without speaking, and when they were all done, I would provide my input. One of them was always the first one to speak, I was always the last one to speak, and the others were somewhere in between. Each approach had its benefits, but each also had its shortcomings.

In the same way, we all have different responses to crises and circumstances, and our response is often dependent on our leadership style, our personal characteristics, the current context, and our past experience. The end result is that a crisis comes or a decision needs to be made, and we respond based on that combination of things, which may be different than the way someone else might respond. However you respond, though, you need to make sure it is done on purpose, for a purpose. For that to happen, you need to do two things:

1. Understand your natural response. You may run away from danger to keep yourself and others safe, or you may run toward danger to try to intervene. You may have an immediate response that happens without thinking, or you may take a little bit of time to analyze and decide the best response. Regardless, understand what your ingrained and learned response is likely to be, so that you will know how you automatically respond when a crisis hits or a decision needs to be made.
2. Prepare a good response. Now that you understand your own tendency, determine when your natural response is going to be the best action to take so that you are prepared and can feel confident with that response when it is needed. Then determine when a different response might be needed, and decide what you need to do in advance to be ready, which may likely involve a predetermined written plan and the involvement of others who respond differently than you.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from watching two opposite reactions from my grandchildren to a doorbell ring. Know what you are going to do without thinking, and know when that will be the best response. But also know when you will need a different response, and prepare for it. Doing this can help prevent you from “leaping without looking” when you need to slow down, and from paralyzed inaction when you need to speed up. One way of responding isn’t necessarily going to always be the best way, so if you want to be prepared for crises and decisions, know yourself and make a plan.