Everyday Leadership Tue, Feb 07, 2017

I am a big fan of TED Talks.  TED is a nonpartisan, nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks.  One of my favorite inspiring talks is by Drew Dudley called Everyday Leadership.  He says that many of us unfortunately don’t view ourselves as leaders and we perceive leadership as something reserved for the extraordinary -- basically changing the world type stuff.

We take moments where we truly are a leader and we don’t let ourselves take credit for it or feel good about it.  He believes that we have all changed someone’s life -- usually without even realizing it.  He asks that we celebrate leadership as the everyday act of improving each other’s lives.

How many of us have had a moment where someone said or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better?  I think many of us would answer yes to this question but did you ever tell that person they did it?  Surprisingly, the more common answer is no.  Drew wonders why not and makes a joke that we celebrate birthdays where all you have to do is not die for 365 days and yet we let people who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it.