I teach a college leadership course and am invited to facilitate leadership workshops at different institutions. While I believe in all the evidence based research about leadership, at the end of the day seemingly insignificant acts of kindness, empathy or connection can have significant influence on a person and inspire them to achieve goals. The goal doesn't have to be life altering, but can be a goal associated with a general goal in life to like enjoying ones day.
Lately I've been leading off my classes by asking students how they practiced Everyday Leadership over the last week or how someone demonstrated Everyday Leadership towards them. Drew Dudley calls the product of Everyday Leadership a "Lollipop Moment". Today a student shared his "Lollipop Moment" when the bus driver let him on the bus even though the student didn't have the money to pay the fare. The bus driver even gave the student a transfer, in the event that the student needed to change buses at any point. My students are now doing little things like greeting me when I enter the classroom and asking me about my weekend (I identified this behaviour as a lollipop moment for me, so now they do it every class). Leadership is a skill. Like any skill it needs to be practiced to be developed. I used Drew Dudley's video in my first class of the semester to help students understand that they can practice leadership everyday and improve skills and their awareness of leadership moments.
This week I had a BIG lollipop moment that is really worth acknowledgement. In a moment of rushing I left my Ipad on a desk in the gymnasium at a local high school I was visiting last week. I realized my mistake the next morning. I phoned the school and even drove up to ask any of the custodians if they'd seen my Ipad. But no luck. I was disappointed in myself all weekend for my careless action. Monday morning I received a phone call from the custodian, Ayaz, who was on staff on friday night when I left my Ipad at the school. In a nice message left on my cell phone he informed me that he found my Ipad in the gym on friday night when doing his final rounds, before leaving the school. He was in a rush to get home that night, so he put the Ipad in his locker with the intension of calling me first thing Monday morning, which he did. This was a super-sized lollipop moment. These acts of "Everyday Leadership" set the example for people and inspire them to act in similar ways.Have you had any "Lollipop Moments" this week?
