Great Leaders Are Like Sponges

Great leaders are like sponges; they soak up as much as they can from their leaders.

Early on in my leadership journey I was fortunate to be surrounded by leaders who built me up. I remember a very important meeting that our organization was holding and I was required to be at. The day of the meeting was the worst timing for me out of the entire week. I had a full day of other meetings, and to top it off, I was preparing for a huge event that I had to break from in order to be at this particular meeting. I reluctantly attended while glancing at my watch the whole time just waiting till I could get back to what I was doing before. My mind was somewhere else and obviously I wasn’t doing a good job hiding it. After the meeting I quickly darted out the back after saying goodbye’s and quickly shaking hands. As I walked down the hallway the leader of the organization, who facilitated the meeting, met up with me and put his arm around my shoulder. He smiled at me and said, “John, I know you are busy and are working very hard right now, but I want you to know that when you come to a meeting I want your mind and heart present. I saw you watching your clock and keeping your head down disengaged. These meetings are vital to our company moving forward and you are an example to everyone else in that room. I need you alert next time because you have much to offer us. Keep up the good work!” He then went on to build me up with encouraging words about what I had been doing for the organization. I will never forget that moment. At first I was embarrassed, then I started to defend myself in my mind thinking he just didn’t know how busy I was. But eventually I realized he was right to call me out. From that day on I decided that wherever I was I would try to be fully in the moment. Dan built me up that day. He could have just corrected me and stopped there, but he took the time to affirm me with the positive strengths and talents he saw in me.

We need to receive instruction from our leaders. If your superiors consistently feel frustrated that you do not listen to them, you will lose opportunities from them. If you are intentional, you can always learn great tips from your leaders. You will either learn what to do…or what not to do. So it’s always a win-win in the end. I have had many leaders I served under that I learned what not to do more than I learned what to do…and it has served my success tremendously. You need to always be in a growth mindset as you follow your leaders. The more you can learn from them, the more you can earn from them. Author Vernon Howard said, “Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn, and you will.”

Don’t be what I call a “Couch Coach.” You know those people who sit on the couch eating potato chips yelling out every call the coach should have done in the game on TV. They think they know it all when it comes to being the perfect coach. What’s funny is that they never disagree with their own calls, they just always seem to know better than anyone else. It’s a wonder why professional leagues don’t call them up and offer them a job for their amazing couch expertise. If we’re not careful, we can easily turn into leadership couch coaches, always thinking we know what’s best and we have nothing to learn. But the more we think we know, the less we try to learn.

I like how Coach John Wooden put it when he said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Only when we admit that we don’t know it all can we open the door to unlimited possibilities. At age 94, Pablo Casals was considered one of the greatest cellists of all time. After one of his last concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. he was asked why he still practiced over three hours a day. He responded, “I think I am making progress.” He also stated, “To retire is the beginning of death.” Always push yourself to stay in a growth mindset. Challenge yourself to get better and better and to never settle for where you currently are.