A real leadership story, not a linkedin one.

On leadership? Or how to live a good life? No idea. Only sure that many 'leaders' (Linkedin seems to be full of leaders) might find of interest reading this story below.

Yet, first please, imagine entering one of your sales manager office and approaching him saying: 'buddy, I'm sorry, you missed another quarter in a row, cant grant your future here' ...VS ' Hey man, you missed another quarter in a row, is all ok with you? Is there anything I can do to help?'

Who is the leader here? And how many of us, 'supposed to be leader', are truly pursuing the recognition of human in all we are dealing with? How many of us are accepting to have a super limited view? How many of us realize the importance of what we do not know over what we know (or we believe to know)? If someone is not performing at all....do we ask ourselves why? what's happening there?

Finally, who of us has the right to define him/herself leader: is not this attribute something others should give us? Maybe simply following us, because we enable them to trust in themselves?

This below is the story of a real leader, not a Linkedin one.

Her name was Mrs. Thompson. Standing in front of her her new fifth grade class on the first day of school, she told the children a lie. Like most of the teachers, she looked at the students and told them to love them all equally.

However, this was impossible because there in the front row, slumped in the chair, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. Mrs. Thompson had observed Teddy the previous year and had noticed that he did not play peacefully with the other children ...

His clothes were messy and he often needed a nice bath. Plus, Teddy was grumpy and lonely.

There came a time when Mrs. Thompson should have negatively highlighted Teddy's academic performance; she first, however, she wanted to consult the results that each child had achieved in previous years; last, she examined Teddy's situation.

However, when she saw her file, she was surprised. In first grade Teddy's teacher had written:

“Teddy is a brilliant baby with a ready laugh. He does his job in an orderly way and has good manners ”.

His second-grade teacher wrote: "Teddy is an excellent student, well-liked by his classmates, but he is tormented because his mother is terminally ill and life at home must be a struggle."

His third grade teacher wrote: “His mother's death has been hard for him and he tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest and, if the right measures are not taken, his family background will soon it will affect him ".

Finally, the fourth-year teacher wrote: "Teddy has withdrawn into himself and no longer shows interest in school. He has no friends and sometimes sleeps in class ”.

From that moment Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed.

Please: stop here for a second: ask yourself, when has it been the last time you have put pressure on someone because of his/her performance? At that time, did you know the full story? When you yelled to someone this morning while driving your car, did you know the story? Ok, let's proceed.

She also felt worse when the students brought her Christmas presents, all wrapped in beautiful ribbons and shiny papers, except for Teddy's.

Her present was awkwardly wrapped in heavy brown paper that she had made from a grocery bag. It was painful for Mrs Thompson to open it with the other presents. Some children began to laugh when the teacher found a rock crystal bracelet with some missing stones, and a bottle full of perfume only for a quarter. The children stopped laughing when she exclaimed how beautiful the bracelet was, put it on and dabbed the perfume on her wrist. Teddy had a little extra time after class that day just to say to Mrs Thompson "Today you have the perfume my mom used to wear."

When the children were gone, Mrs Thompson was left alone crying for at least an hour.

From that day on she stopped teaching how to read, how to write, how to do arithmetic, instead she began to "work" with the children and take an interest in their family life.

She paid close attention to Teddy and when she worked with him, the child's mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the more prompt he was in answering. (note: that's not what leadership is! That's what living is!)

By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the most attentive and willing children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all children equally, the teacher noticed that Teddy became one of "her favorites".

A year after leaving school, Mrs. Thompson found a note under the door: it was from Teddy; the letter said that she had been the best teacher she had ever had in her life. It was several years before she got another message from Teddy. He had finished high school, ranking third in his class. She closed the letter by asserting again that Mrs. Thompson was still the best teacher she had ever had in her life.

Four years later, he received another letter, saying that when things were difficult sometimes he had stayed in school, he had worked hard and now he would soon graduate from college with the highest honors. It confirmed that Mrs. Thompson was always the best teacher he had ever known in his entire life, his favorite.

Other years passed and yet another letter arrived. This time he explained that after he got his degree, he had decided to move on. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had, but now his signature was a little longer. The letter reported, in beautiful handwriting, Dr. Theodore F. Stoddard.

But the story does not end here. Another letter arrived that spring. Teddy wrote that he had met a girl and was getting married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and asked Mrs. Thompson to accompany him to the wedding in the place of the groom's mother.

Of course, Mrs. Thompson agreed. And guess what she did?

She wore that bracelet, the one with the missing rhinestones, the one Teddy had given her; she too made sure to put on the perfume that Teddy's mother wore the last Christmas they spent together.

They hugged and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson's ear:

“Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and for showing me that I could make a difference. "

Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered, “Teddy, you're wrong. You are the one who taught me that I could make a difference: I didn't know how to teach until I met you. "

Conclusions:

• How you, 'supposed to be leader', would have react in this situation?
• How you 'supposed to be leader', are reacting every time someone is coming with a wrong tie, or a wrong attitude?
• Every time someone is missing a goal, or he/she is struggling in performing his/her job? Are you there to help? Are you humble enough to recognize to not have all the answers? To merely consider your first impression for what really is: a simple assumption, an hypothesis to be tested (in the best cases)?
• How many time you, 'supposed to be leader', failed in listening? Failed in connecting with the others? Failed in thinking that career, money, progression, recognition are dust in the proof of time?
• How many time are you a true leader? And the most important of all questions you might ever asking yourself: is being a leader a valid goal to live for? Is this the highest aspiration you can pursue in business, in life?

There are many magic words in English, a leader is just one of many. Go on and be creative, you can pick up other titles as well :-)

Thank you very much for the time you allotted in reading this article, hope to have enable some inspiration, if differently you believe you wasted your time, please accept my sincere apologies.

P.S.

I do not define my self leader, honestly I do not care about it at all, I leave others to decide how to define me. I walk my way, sometime I'm lucky someone is with me, so we can do this journey together for a while, some other time I'm alone. I only care about the people I deal with, and here it does not matter if for a blink of an eye or for longer then a lifetime. I'm handling with care what I believe I know (assuming I know something), conscious it is nothing compared to what I do not know. That's business, that's life, my dear Linkedin leaders.