The Challenge of Leadership

The Challenge of Leadership

Benjamin Franklin played a lot of roles, but primarily,
you'd have to call him a thinker. He knew how to think.
And that led him to act. In our current lingo, we could say
that he knew how to think outside the box. His approach
to solving problems wasn't restricted to the solutions that
were already on the table. He could come up with new
solutions. That's how he came to be an inventor. You have
to think up the solution in your mind before you create the
solution.

Franklin knew to think in simple terms. He needed to
reach the books on the high shelf so he invented an
extension rod that operated with a simple pull string. You
push the extension rod up to the book you wanted, pull the
string and the clamp would hold the book. Very simple.

Franklin didn't invent street lights, although he's given
credit for it on occasion. But in his day, if you had to be
out on the streets at night, you carried your own light.
Since everybody was accustomed to carrying their own
light, nobody saw the need to put lights on the streets.
Carrying a light was not the best solution, but it was the
solution that everyone was used to.

And Franklin correctly anticipated that a recommendation
to the town council to light the streets at night would
cause a big fuss about who would pay for all that expense.
And who needed them anyway since everyone already
had their own light to carry.

So Franklin had a new thought. He bought a lamp and
hung it on a pole outside his house. Before long a
neighbor down the street got a light and hung it on a pole
outside his own house. The idea caught on and soon the
city council took on the idea of street lights for the town.
They bought Ben Franklin's idea without him ever saying
a word.

This is what we call leading by example.