Leadership is choosing the difference you want to make

Jane Goodall on Making a Difference

When Levi Strauss arrived in California intending to sell tents to the miners he discovered that they didn’t need tents because it hardly ever rained. He could have taken the tents somewhere rainy or given up on being an entrepreneur and got a job in a bar. Instead he cut up the tents and turned them into the world’s first blue jeans.

When tunnellers digging through a mountain in Japan had a problem with too much water leaking into their tunnel they could have sealed the tunnel or stopped and dug elsewhere. Instead the bottled the mountain-filtered water and sold it as mineral water.

When Alexander Fleming noticed that the bacteria hadn’t grown properly on one of his petri dish experiments he could have simply washed it out or thrown it away. Instead he investigated why the experiment had ‘failed’ and discovered penicillin.

Leadership is about seeing the opportunities in a situation, and choosing the difference you want to make.

What difference do you want to make this week?

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