Leadership Strategies: Confidence to Do It Yourself

Boy, can the little ones teach us to pay attention to how we respond to life! And, they can be a great monitor for us, even better than the most experienced adult. Here is a fun, and also deeply important incident that happened over the weekend.

 
My husband Herb and I have been visiting with our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Our rather precocious four-year-old granddaughter (she really is, it’s not just a grandma thing!) and I were home alone putting a puzzle together. We got all the pieces out, and the instructions initially seemed so simple it was a slam dunk that it should take, oh, maybe ten minutes.

 
Now, I don’t mean to brag, but I did well in school and even earned a PhD. So, I guess I can be considered somewhat smart. Anyway, forty-five minutes later, the darn thing was still dispersed all over the carpet.

 
Frustrated, I turned to Arielle and said meekly “Well, I guess we just have to wait for Grandpop to come home”.  She reached over to pat my arm and said, “Hey Grandmom, we can do it, I just know we can do it. We don’t have to wait for anyone else.”

 
I wasn’t so sure, yet her enthusiasm leaked over to my side of the puzzle and we began again. She handed me each piece the way a competent nurse must deal with a surgical resident doing a first appendectomy.

 
We finished, just in time for her parents and Herb to walk in the door. Arielle proudly showed them the work we had completed. I was grateful no one asked how long it took and I was also grateful that the smart four-year-old can’t yet tell time!

 
What did I learn? That the children who are being taught to think for themselves from the get-go, the ones getting recognized for a “job well done” when they master a new skill, the ones who are being trained to have patience and look for options to solve the little puzzles of life have the confidence to stay with it, even when they are not sure of the outcome.

 
Honestly, I’m not so sure I was taught that as a child. I thought about it later and realized that as a young girl, I often waited for my older brother to help me out when I got stuck. The world has changed, and with it so has the role of females.

 
My granddaughter showed me the new way for both little girls, and boys: stick with it and learn to solve it yourself and have the confidence to believe you can do it. That sure does give me some faith in the future. If enough of our children and grandchildren grow up willing to stay with it, to solve life’s problems, maybe there really is hope for this complex and bruised world.