Good, interested people make the best community leaders. Quality people aspiring to better others and the words they live in.
Good, Interested People
During halftime of the Georgia Bulldogs game on Saturday, I was channel surfing. I came across a documentary on one of our country’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. At the point in which I turned it on, the documentary was celebrating Franklin’s involvement in the Philadelphia community. He was extremely active in the formation of the local newspaper, hospitals, and schools.
The narrator said that Benjamin Franklin, “Believed that any civic case could be solved with a few good, interested people.” I agree. The concept deeply resonated with me.
Leadership and Main was created for the Benjamin Franklin’s of today. Those that serve locally as public servants, educators, pastors, elected officials, coaches, small business leaders, and those serving in the non-profit civic world. Really…any good, interested person who desires to contribute to their local community.
So…what are good people interested in? Here are the two things that come to mind:
Interested in Something Bigger
Good, interested people are interested in being a part of something bigger than themselves. The most simplistic definition of community is, “a group of people.” Community leaders lead groups of people.
The best community leaders believe in this equation:
COMMUNITY
me
Big community, little me, that’s the secret recipe for being a part of something bigger than ourselves. When we strive to selflessly serve something that is greater than us, big things happen. The smaller we make ourselves, the larger the prioritization of others.
Interested in Leaving Things
Good, interested people are interested in leaving things better than they find them. Everything they touch, everyone they invest in is bettered in the process. When their time is finished, things are simply better than how they found them.
In our own leadership worlds, this is a tremendous responsibility. It should be the fundamental duty that drives us daily. It’s the one thing that measures whether we made an impact or simply took up space. As we walk off into the sunset of our careers, when we look back at our shadow, does it cast progress? The answer to that question matters.
Conclusion
There is one thing that good, interested people are disinterested in…ambition. Whenever I conduct performance evaluations, there is always a self-evaluation component. In it, the first component is for the team member to provide single words or phrases that would describe their performance.
I once had a team member select the words, “Energetic, enthusiastic, and ambitious.”
Something hit me in that moment, and I took a long pause. Then, I asked the person, “Which one of those three words serves no one else but yourself?” After some awkward silence, I answered the question for them…“Ambition.” Energy motivates others. Enthusiasm is contagious. Ambition…self-serving.
I know that concept may throw some people off. Shouldn’t we be ambitious?
Let me clarify. When I think about ambition, I think about the desire to achieve things that benefit self. Awards, accolades, accomplishments, and positional advancement. It really doesn’t factor others into our leadership equation when we pursue ambition.
Leaving the things and the people we encounter along our journey better than we found them…should interest us. Pursuing things bigger than ourselves along the way…should interest us. Serving self…should disinterest us.
Community leadership is the ABILITY and WILLINGNESS to better OTHERS and the WORLDS we live in. Everyone possesses the ABILITY, the question is do we have the WILLINGNESS to serve OTHERS and the WORLDS we live in…our COMMUNITIES? Good, interested people do that.
