On the road of blogging on leadership, life interrupted me. I was driving back from a training session in Sandpoint, Idaho when I came on a horrible head-on collision that had happened only a few seconds before. It was a horrific scence. A baby had been thrown out of a SUV and the mother and a passenger were pinned inside. Almost immediately a fire started under the SUV that could not be put out no matter how hard we tried. It would take 20 minutes for fire trucks to arrive. Every door had been jammed due to the impact. As the flames began to reach into the interior both the driver and the passenger were removed through the side windows. The baby was fine. The mother is fighting for her life and the passenger died on the way to the hospital. The other vehicle was a pickup truck driven by an intoxicated man who had his license suspended in 1986 and had 60 subsequent arrests for driving without a license or driving while intoxicated. He will survive his injuries.
So what does that horrific scene have to do with leadership? It was heartening to see over a dozen people disregard their own safety and comfort and risk their lives for another by trying to save two people destined to be burned alive.
An essential quality for leadership is bravery--the willingness to sacrifice your own personal safety for another. There is no such thing as a cowardly leader. I did not see managers around that SUV that evening. Only leaders. I was proud to have been shoulder to shoulder with over a dozen leaders, many of whom had no idea they had it in them.
Greater love has no one than this: to (be willing to) lay down one's life for one's friends. John 15:13 (parenthesis, mine)
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