On September 20th, Dave Ramsey released his playbook, Entreleadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches. This book is full of amazing stories and lessons on building a great business – and being a great leader. Probably the most fascinating story to me is this one:
“Every summer, we have a huge company picnic… On this particular summer day, my wife, my teenage son, and I were on our way to the picnic. We have a young team, with the average age under thirty, so we have lots of young families. As I glanced over my info for the day, I noticed that in attendance that day among six hundred people were ninety-seven children (of our team members) under the age of ten. So we had tons of kids’ games–several giant blow-up bounce houses and slide-type events. When we pulled up, parked, and began walking into the camp where the event was being held, it looked like a giant day care. Wow, kids everywhere. My wife immediately found team members and struck up a conversation. My teenage son and I began walking through this child-induced chaos toward the barbecue. He turned to me and said what any good teen would say: “Dad, how long do I have to stay?”
Right then it struck me that we had a teachable moment. I said, “Son, look across this field. What do you see?”
“Way too many little kids.”
I laughed and agreed. “Actually there are ninety-seven kids here under age ten that are the children of our team members. Do you know what that means?”
“Nope, but I bet you are going to tell me.”
“Yep, those kids’ parents make a living, have a future, and those kids have a future partly because of how I act. If I misbehave in my personal life, if I fail in areas of integrity, if I screw up, it will mess up a ton of lives. As a servant leader, I understand that I am at least partially responsible for those little kids.”
“Dad, that much responsibility is kind of heavy.”
“I agree, son, but to whom much is given, much is expected. We as a family have all the financial and other blessings of having a successful business. What goes with that is we must take our responsibility as leaders very seriously. Son, even if you screw up, it will harm the future of some of those little kids. If you decide to get drunk, hit someone head-on, and kill them, we will get sued and all these people could lose their jobs. You have the blessing of being in this family and get to have and do all the things that success allows, but with that even you have a huge responsibility to make our family name one we are all proud to wear. Now let’s get some barbecue.”
