Wijaya Kusuma Foundation

AN INVITATION TO GREATNESS

If you're big enough for your dream, your dream isn't big enough for you. --Erwin Raphael McManus, pastor and author

WHO IS A LEADER?
One day, my assistant informed me over the intercom, "There is a Cadet Green on line two. I think you'll want to talk to him."

That was my introduction to Cadet Shawn Green, U.S. Air Force Academy.

The Air Force Academy had been in the papers a great deal lately for various challenges it was facing, and none of the recent news had been positive.

Shawn Green called me to tell me he had read my first book, The Fred Factor. He believed the book offered a message that needed to be shared at the Academy. So he took the initiative to call me out of the blue to ask if I would be willing to come and speak. "I'm just a person who wants to make things better," he told me.

This exceptional individual was undaunted by the challenge of contacting people he didn't know who he thought could help. He couldn't afford to pay the people he was contacting to appear. In fact, he actually had to get official approval for us to appear for free. Cadet Green didn't have a title, but he was certainly a leader.

As a result of his bold request, both bestselling author Stephen Covey and I came to speak to the graduating class of freshman cadets. Meeting so many of the best of the best who were determined to serve their country was a memorable experience, one that I will not soon forget.

People who lead--whether or not they have a title--strive to make things better.

We all want to have an impact on the world around us. No one wants to be blown sideways in life by forces they can't control.

Part of growing up is figuring out how much influence we have over our environment, from parents to friends, from school to careers.

Our choices in life have a huge impact on the kind of education we get, the kinds of jobs we land, the relationships we develop and become involved in, and the quality of the lives we live. The desire to influence the world around us is what real leadership is all about.

DO YOU THINK YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

When you first look in the mirror in the morning, do you say to yourself, "Today, I'm going to change the world!"?

Probably not.

And yet we do change history every day, not just for ourselves but for our families, communities, employers, and country. Some of the ways we effect change are significant: landing a huge account, raising money for charity, helping to coach a youth soccer team. Others are small: letting someone merge ahead of us in traffic, taking an interest in a colleague who needs someone to listen. But none are trivial.

I'm not suggesting that simple acts of courtesy in and of themselves constitute acts of leadership. Yet leaders, untitled or otherwise, realize the extraordinary impact they can have on others and the world around them. They consciously choose to exercise their abilities, skills, and knowledge to help make a difference.

WHAT IS IT YOU WANT?
Professor of sociology and speaker Tony Campolo claims that if you ask most parents what they want for their children, they will say they want their children to be happy.

Campolo goes on to say that he grew up in a home where his father didn't care if he was happy. You see, his father wanted more for his children than just to be happy. He wanted each of them to be good, to be an ethical person who makes a positive contribution. Sometimes that requires hard work and self sacrifice, putting another's needs ahead of your own. These are things that might not, in the short term, make us "happy." But they do help us to do good and make a difference. Being happy is enviable, but being good is truly admirable. It requires character, integrity, and perseverance.

Sometimes being "good" isn't aiming high enough. As Erwin McManus, the pastor of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles, said, "We spend so much time worrying about our kids being good--not breaking the rules, getting into trouble, and basically behaving--that we often forget to invite them to be great."

In fact, I define true leadership as "an invitation to greatness that we extend to others." There is a catch, though. We can't give what we don't have. We can't extend an invitation we haven't already accepted.

At a recent convention, a member of the association sponsoring the event volunteered to work as backstage manager and assist with everything that happened behind the scenes at the general sessions. Because Rick was busy preparing between general sessions, he gave up the chance to attend most of the sessions during the conference. He didn't receive any payment, other than the appreciation of the association leaders, and he still paid a full registration fee for his attendance.

He was an example of one of the many who serve as untitled leaders, who handle the necessary but often unglamorous jobs that need to be done.

Volunteers for important or high-profile tasks are never in short supply. While I don't want to shortchange the importance of "the big show," I am even more impressed by the leaders who know what must be done behind the scenes to make the big show happen. They take on difficult and time-consuming assignments not because they want to be praised or noticed-- just because those tasks have to be done. As a result, everyone benefits.

The reality is that we all work "backstage" in our lives at times. Real leaders bring the same commitment to excellence to whatever they do, whether on the stage or behind it.

DON'T CONFUSE LEADERSHIP WITH FAME

Recently, the Discovery Channel aired a four-part special on the top 100 greatest Americans. Matt Lauer hosted the show each week for one month; half a million nominations were gathered online. At the end, the top twenty-five Americans were announced. The results were what most people would call a mixed bag: Among those on the list were Abraham Lincoln and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Clinton and Billy Graham, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Cruise, Walt Disney and John F. Kennedy, Dr. Phil and Michael Moore. The mixture of historically great leaders and entertainers like Michael Jackson and real estate mogul Donald Trump begs the question: What do we think "greatness" is?

In my opinion, fame is based on what we get in life, but true greatness is based on what we give in life. It is contribution through action.

BARBARA STAMMER Barbara Stammer's career plans changed when she was nineteen years old. At the time, she was attending college with the intention of becoming a schoolteacher. Then the guy she planned to marry broke off the engagement and she left college to pick up the pieces and "find herself. "All my plans were down the tubes," Barbara recalls. "I remember thinking  What will I do with my life?'"

As luck would have it, a budding restaurateur named Bobby Merritt was hiring. Only months earlier, he had been employed driving a bread truck. Then he had a bad accident that changed his life forever. "I was in and out of hospitals over the next few years and was left with a permanent disability," says Bobby.

While recovering and considering how to take care of his wife and three small children, he found a help-wanted ad in the local newspaper. A restaurant chain called Sonic was looking for a managing partner in Las Cruces, New Mexico. And that's how Bobby got started in the restaurant business.

Barbara was the first employee Bobby hired. He knew her mother, who ran a commissary at a military base, from his bread truck route and her mother's own attitude and loyalty had always impressed him. As he expected, these traits run in the family. Barbara's can-do attitude and enthusiasm quickly helped her to learn the Sonic business.

Merritt bought out his original partners and started expanding. In December, as he prepared to open up a new drive-in restaurant, he asked Barbara to help train the crew. It was the first time she had helped to train someone else. "Soon I was ordering equipment and uniforms and doing everything necessary to get ready for a new opening." She discovered that not only was she good at doing her job, she was good at teaching others, as well.

"Barb," Bobby remembers, "was high-energy. She always wanted to make whatever she did better."

With her strong work ethic and sense of integrity, Barbara treated the business as if it were her own. Her passion and sense of responsibility made her a stellar employee, and Bobby continued to increase her responsibilities.

Yet she didn't have a title. Nor did she have one for the next fifteen or twenty years, until one day "Sonic Corporate said we had grown so much we needed an org chart," she said, laughing. "Bobby stopped by my office and asked me if I would like to be president. I said I would think about it. I never got back to him, but at the next company convention he announced that I had agreed to be president!"

Barbara Stammer helped Bobby Merritt build the largest Sonic franchise system in the United States, with 5,500 employees, 130-plus stores, $160 million in revenues, and some of the highest performance numbers in the business. And Barbara didn't need a title to do it (although she came to earn one in time).

BEING A LEADER

Genuine leaders make things better not just for themselves but for others, whether or not their contribution results in financial reward or popular recognition. A few leaders achieve both fame and greatness, and we read about them in history books. But most of the people I think of as leaders are untitled people like Barbara Stammer; they achieve greatness by working quietly in their organizations and communities, in their own lives, and in helping those around them.

Any Comments or Inputs are welcome