LLML NUMBER 3
When I was a kid, I spent many hours watching my dad mow the lawn. I thought that I understood what the job involved. One day I became old enough for my dad to delegate the lawn mowing to me. Wow! I discovered that what I thought I knew about lawn mowing was a bit different than what I was now learning. I didn’t fully appreciate some of the blood, sweat, and tears that could be involved in mowing the lawn. LLML (Leadership Lessons from Mowing the Lawn) Number 3 is subtly simple:
There’s always more to the job than meets your eye.
As leaders, we can sometimes lose track of what goes into a job. Just because you or I might not be the person performing that particular job is no excuse for not appreciating the totality of that job. It seems that the more compassionate and thoughtful a leader is, the more likely he or she is to have that awareness. I’m sure we have all seen cases in which someone in authority flippantly gave an order, not fully realizing all that could be involved. This is a mistake on two levels.
- That leader loses the respect of his workers for being so flippant and essentially disrespectful to the team.
- That leader loses a knowledge of the cost calculations associated with performing the larger project, thereby threatening to undermine its success.
LLML Number 3 has always amazed me. It continuously causes me to rear back in respect at any job regardless of how simple or obvious it may appear on the surface. Understanding this should automatically instill a respect to anyone for any job. How do you rate yourself when it comes to assessing other people’s jobs? LLML Number 3:
There’s always more to the job than meets your eye.
