Fleas help teach important leadership lesson
Now, deep into the unboxing, sorting and pitching process of the move, I ran across some notes from a leadership conference I attended with John Maxwell years ago. Curious to see if the information was still relevant, I scanned through some of it. To my delight, it was as point on today as it was six or eight years ago. (At least some things are not changing overnight!)

The content got me thinking and remembering a story I heard and often used when I taught. It goes like this…

If you were to catch a bunch of fleas ( I know, who in their right mind…), but if you were to catch a bunch of fleas and put them into a mason jar with the lid on, they would beat their little flea heads nearly to death on the inside of the lid jumping up and trying to escape. But after a while they would curtail their jumps just enough to miss the lid and not beat themselves in the head. (Even fleas are not “dead” stupid!)

Given a little more time, you could actually take the lid off and the fleas would continue to jump at exactly the same height. They would not jump out of the jar even though they had the ability to jump out. They would learn their limits. They would live within those limits.

So what the heck does that have to do with leadership? Just this, if we are the leader of any organization, for profit or not for profit, or the joint leader in a home with a spouse, we are the lid. Our organization, our home will reflect us. Where we put ourselves is where we put the lid. That is because people will follow a leader much farther down the road than they can be pushed by a leader. (Whoever heard of a children’s game named “pushed by the leader”?)

Therefore, the growth, wider or deeper, of any group is directly related to its leadership. More than history or momentum, what we are doing now as a leader has a greater impact.

So, this morning, in light of having just sent two sons and a daughter off to college, I am busy asking myself three questions.

One, what kind of leader have I been for my family? Two, where did I place the lid? And three, by where I put the lid, have I helped them or hindered them in their growth?

Just another thought from the shallows….