I once listened to a leadership podcast by Andy Stanley titled “Leaders Go First!” In the talk Andy pointed out that the leader isn’t always the smartest person in the room, or the most creative one. Often the leader is just the one who goes first. He offered the illustration of a group of children riding bicycles “off road.” The group comes to the crest of a hill, a very steep hill. Everyone looks at each other wondering, “Is it safe? Can we make it to the bottom of the hill without getting hurt? Which route would be the best?” As all these questions and more bounce through everyone’s minds, one member of the group let’s out a whoop and heads down the hill. After a ride that may have been exhilarating, terrifying or both, the rider looks back to the rest of the group from the bottom of the hill and pumps both fists in the air. That rider has just become the leader of the group! The next time a danger, challenge, or opportunity comes to the group, they will look to their leader for permission, for direction, for whether to attempt to overcome the danger, or to take on the challenge.
I’ve found Stanley’s assessment to be true time and time again in my life. I remember a time nearly four decades ago when I worked a part-time job as a carpenter. I had started working evenings and Saturdays with Nancy’s cousin Frank, who already held a full-time job as the foreman of his dad’s construction crew. They built new homes and did remodeling Monday to Friday. Frank also worked in the evenings and on Saturdays during the summer months to make extra money. He had taken me on as a third member of his “crew.” I was in my second summer of working with Frank and John. I had also started working full-time with Frank’s dad that summer during my break from college, so I had gained sufficient skills for the task that was before us on that particular Saturday morning: removing an old roof down to the rafters, replacing the rotted sheeting boards with plywood, covering it with felt (tar paper), and then laying new shingles.
The house was small, and the task of removing one half of the old roof and getting it to the point of being water tight, meaning to the point that it had plywood and felt covering it would likely only take a few hours. The challenge was the weather. As we got up on the roof that morning with mattocks in hand (The plan was simply to drive our mattocks through the old, rotted shingles and sheeting in order to remove them as quickly as possible, and then replace them with the plywood, felt and shingles.), the sky looked ominous. It was about nine in the morning. The weather forecast called for afternoon rain, but the morning would have only “scattered showers.” We knew we couldn’t get the whole roof done that Saturday. We weren’t sure we could even finish half of it completely. The goal was to get half of the roof “felted under,” meaning water tight. This would ensure that when it did rain, the house would not be damaged until we could complete the job.
The three of us stood looking up at the sky and considering what to do. The clouds to the west were gray and threatening. If felt like rain. At the same time, we knew that to do nothing would put us behind schedule, and we only worked this job on Saturdays and evenings. Frank had other work lined up for us, so delays meant frustrated potential customers, and smaller paychecks for us. The possibility existed that the rain would come before the roof was felted under, or it could miss us completely. The roof was already leaking. That’s why the homeowner had called Frank in the first place. He had water marks on his ceilings, which meant the rain was coming through the roof and pooling in places on the ceiling. Frank had determined the sheeting was rotten by inspecting the roof from the outside–by walking on it, and from the inside–through a visual inspection from the attic. What should we do?
I drove the mattock through a section of the roof. It pulled away easily. It wasn’t going to take long to remove the old stuff. AND I had just become the leader of the group for that day! The three of us worked quickly, exposing one half of the roof to the elements. John started handing us plywood, and cutting the end pieces to fit. Frank and I nailed furiously. As we completed the plywood it started to rain softly. We quickly laid the felt, making sure it was nailed securely, and lapping the top piece over the peak of the roof to ensure that no rain could enter. We got off the roof, gathered our tools into the truck and jumped in the cab. A few minutes later we were sitting through a downpour. It rained harder and harder, but the half of the roof where we had just worked was more secure from the elements than the other half. John, who always called me “Sonny” said, “Well, Sonny. Looks like you were lucky.” Frank saw it differently. He was never one for giving compliments, but I noticed that he started relying on my opinion more when we needed to make decisions. He was still the boss, but my leadership had risen in his eyes. He started giving me more opportunities to make decisions, to lead.
It takes courage to go first. Courage is the quality of a leader that causes him or her to go first. There’s a difference between courage and recklessness. That day on the roof I took a calculated risk. I had faith in our crew. I knew we could get the roof to a point of being water tight in a couple of hours if we worked as hard as we could, and I knew we were especially motivated that morning. I knew the roof was already leaking, so even if we only got the plywood on the roof it would turn nearly as much water as the roof was currently. I also knew I would work in the rain until the roof was watertight if need be and so would Frank and John. Exercising leadership in that moment wasn’t a big risk, but going first showed confidence in myself and the team.
The next time you have a challenge before you, do you want to be the leader? Do you want to have the responsibility of stepping into the unknown and taking the risk no one else is ready to take? Remember, the difference between courage and recklessness. Courage moves people and groups to accomplish more than they would ever be able to do without it. Recklessness is likely to get someone hurt, or to cause unnecessary damage to people or property. Taking a courageous first step can sometimes lead to you or someone getting hurt, too. After all, leadership does come with those kinds of costs. The difference is when leaders exercise courage they are seeking to take the group to a new level whether of experience, expertise or accomplishment, while the reckless person is just looking for the next thrill.
Going first becomes easier over time. Through knowledge and experience we come to know the difference between courage and recklessness. We come to understand that we will nearly always regret NOT going first when opportunities come, more than we’ll regret the consequences of going first. Leaders are much more “afraid” of missing opportunities than of failing. After all when we fail, we can make adjustments, which lead to success. But when we miss an opportunity, it is often gone forever.
Here’s to leading better by going first–today!