Sometimes
opportunities present themselves that make no sense. I had no particular desire to visit Haiti and
no ties to any mission efforts.
As
often the case, helping others achieve their objectives turns out to be leadership
in action. In this case, my brother was
trying to bring water to the village of Ti-Anse in Haiti. He is a retired facilities project engineer
from General Motors with all the right skills to bring this project to
life. I was a guy with some extra time
at the moment. When asked, my immediate
reaction was “no”. Why would I want to
do this 10 day trip with no basic comforts?
When I changed the question to, “would I help someone accomplish their
objective?”, then answer changed to “yes”.
A very similar situation happened in my career when asked to go to
England to complete three MD-11’s in modification. I said no at first and then
was instructed to go. This was the
turning point where I worked internationally the rest of my career visiting
over 50 countries.
So
– as you read this LiaV post, I’m in Haiti and perhaps the 5 miles of pipe, 2
cisterns and distribution system are working.
How has helping someone else achieve their
goals caused you to grow and mature as a leader?
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1 comment:
About a year ago I heard someone give a speech about how leadership is all about serving and that really a leader is nothing more than a servant. It sounds like you're helping your brother and serving the people there big time. So Haiti, wow! this one is a surprise for me (even coming from you). Nice going John.
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