Sean Glaze, a high-school literature teacher, explains a leadership metaphor: obstacles are either brick walls or speed bumps depending on how much a leader has grown. The goal is to develop enough that brick walls become speed bumps.
So what's the difference between brick walls and speed bumps? Well, as a high school literature teacher, you can imagine that there were a number of students that struggled sometimes when it came to reading or writing certain activities, and they would sometimes shut down because they saw that activity as a brick wall. And what I would share with them, what I would share with you as an effective leader, is that the only difference between a brick wall and a speed bump is how big you are. See, if we get to a brick wall and we stop, it's because we don't feel that we're big enough to overcome it. But when we grow ourselves, that brick wall becomes a speed bump. And so your job as an effective leader is to grow yourself in whatever area you might need to so that brick walls become speed bumps and only slow you down instead of stopping you from the goal that you've set for you and your team. I'm Sean Glaze. That's what effective leaders do.
