[2021-05-24] Lollipop moments
Years ago, a young woman enrolled in Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. On the day she was to register for classes, she decided that she wasn’t ready to start university. At that very moment, Drew Dudley, who worked at the university, emerged from a building and started handing out lollipops to promote Shinerama, a charity related to cystic fibrosis. He stopped in front of the young woman and then turned to the guy standing beside her and said, "You need to give a lollipop to the beautiful woman standing next to you." Everyone burst out laughing.
Four years later, the young woman sought out Dudley to tell him how important he had been in her life: "in that moment when everyone was laughing, I knew that I shouldn't quit. I knew that I was where I was supposed to be, and I knew that I was home." As a P.S., she threw in: "You should probably know this, too. I'm still dating that guy four years later."
That encounter, which Dudley shares in his TED talk Everyday Leadership, changed his view of leadership. Dudley asserts that few of us identify with being a leader because we’ve made leadership into something big. We celebrate only amazing things and devalue ordinary moments of leadership. "We’ve made it about changing the world," he argues.
Dudley poses this question to his TED audience: "How many of you guys have [had] a lollipop moment, a moment where someone said something or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better?"
In my case, I've had many lollipop moments, but one of the most memorable occurred when I was an acting director. Young and inexperienced, I inherited a conflict between two employees. My task was to decide on discipline for one of the two employees in relation to an incident that had occurred during my predecessor's tenure. I interviewed both employees, sought advice from human resources, and then spoke to my boss, an Assistant Deputy Minister. He told me what he would do if he were in my position, then added: "But I want you to make your own decision. I’m not even going to ask you what you decided."
This had a profound effect on me. It gave me confidence that I was capable of making the right choice. As it turned out, I made a different decision from the one the ADM suggested given that I had more information than he did. And in the years that followed, the soundness of that decision was confirmed.
Dudley asks why we don’t thank those who influence us more often. I believe this is, in part, because we don’t always realize the impact that a particular act of leadership will have on us until years later.
I did communicate with my former ADM the impact he had had on me and my career. In fact, had it not been for his confidence in me, I might not have gone on to compete for and win the director position, which was the first step in a series of more senior executive positions.
Over the years, I have had many people tell me about moments when I positively influenced their life and career. I'm grateful for all the people who shared stories with me—especially after my cancer diagnosis—about how I had changed their understanding of what they were capable of, how powerful they were and how significant their contribution was.
Like Dudley, I believe that leadership is exercised in countless small ways. It's inviting a young person to take a place at the table. It's showing confidence in someone's ability to make the right decision. It's providing feedback on an employee's work and how it was received by senior managers. It's seeking input from all team members. It's smiling at an employee and listening intently while they present to a group of executives. It's learning, correctly pronouncing and regularly using others' names. It's taking time to say hello and to acknowledge staff. It's passing along compliments but also asking for permission to provide constructive feedback. It's taking junior employees along to meetings with senior colleagues.
Dudley concludes his TED talk by suggesting: "We need to redefine leadership as being about lollipop moments, how many of them we create, how many of them we acknowledge, how many of them we pay forward, and how many of them we say thank you for."
If you know someone like Dudley or my former ADM who made a difference in your life, I encourage you to let them know.
