“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.” Rumi
There is something about September that makes the next season feel tangible. The light changes, children return to school, and there is a newness that somehow settles us into a fuller rhythm. Everyone seems to be beginning something.
For leaders, September offers a natural moment to look again at the people we lead and what has shifted for them. Someone who was thriving six months ago may now be navigating a new responsibility. A colleague who once needed close partnership may have developed the confidence to operate independently. Someone who has quietly delivered for years may be ready for a bigger opportunity. We can know someone well and still lead the version of them we remember versus the person in front of us today.
That is where Rumi’s words have stayed with me as three very different ways of helping another person move forward. The leadership judgment is knowing which one the season calls for.
Be a Lamp: Help me see.
Be a Lifeboat: Help me carry.
Be a Ladder: Help me rise.
A Leadership Check-In
Think about three or four people you lead or influence.
Before deciding what you want to say or do, pause and consider their current circumstances, responsibilities, confidence and capacity.
Then assess…
Lamp: Help Me See
A lamp illuminates the landscape. It gives someone enough visibility to make their own way forward.
Senior leaders often carry context that others cannot easily access. Years of experience create pattern recognition. Executives understand organizational dynamics, anticipate consequences and connect information from a different line of sight.
That perspective can be enormously valuable when we use it to expand someone else’s field of vision.
- Does this person need more context, perspective, clarity or visibility?
- What might they see differently if I shared what I know?
- What am I seeing from my vantage point that they cannot yet see from theirs?
- Where could a question help them examine the situation differently?
Sometimes the most useful leadership contribution is helping someone see the landscape while gracefully allowing them to find their way through.
Lifeboat: Help Me Carry
There are other moments when someone needs help carrying something. Senior leaders often place a high value on resilience, ownership and accountability. We want people who can navigate complexity and keep moving when circumstances become difficult.
That makes it particularly important to notice when resilience has quietly become overload.
- Is this person carrying something that has become unusually heavy?
- Where could I temporarily take some of the weight?
- What pressure could I absorb?
- What obstacle could I remove?
- What might become possible if I created a little more room for them to think, recover or regain their footing?
A lifeboat is designed for a particular stretch of water. It gets someone through a difficult passage. There is wisdom in thinking about support this way.
Stepping in during a demanding season doesn’t diminish someone’s capability. Sometimes it protects the capacity they will need to weather the storm.
Ladder: Help Me Rise
A ladder gives someone access to a place they cannot reach from where they are standing.
This is the work of development, opportunity and sponsorship.
- Who is ready for something they haven’t yet been given?
- Where could I create an opportunity for greater responsibility?
- Whose work deserves more visibility?
- Who would benefit from an introduction or an invitation into a room they have not yet entered?
- Where might I be protecting someone from a stretch that could expand them?
As Senior Leaders, we can recommend someone for the assignment or make the introduction. We can give someone visibility with a senior stakeholder. We can say, “I see you are ready for this,” sometimes before they are entirely convinced themselves.
At a certain point in someone’s development, the greatest contribution we can make is creating access and allowing them to discover what they can do with it. We provide the ladder and give them room to climb.
Choosing the Right One
These images are to help check in with new possibilities for how we might show up. The same person may need a lamp in one conversation, a lifeboat during a difficult season and a ladder when an opportunity arrives. That is what makes this a leadership exercise rather than a personality assessment.
Our natural strengths can influence what we reach for first. Some leaders instinctively explain while others immediately step in when there is pressure. Some leaders (you know who you are) are energized by developing people and creating opportunities.
Think for a moment about a high performer who is struggling. Your instinct may be to coach them through it. Perhaps they need you to remove something from their path. Someone else may be asking for reassurance when what would serve them better is a stretch assignment. Another person may still be receiving guidance because you have always provided it, even though they have developed the capability to operate without it.
The quick look helps size up what someone may need from you now, in this moment, that is different from what they needed before.
Thorough continually asking yourself, am I responding to who this person is today, or to who I have known them to be, you will find you are more able to to meet people where they are.
Everyone arrives at the next season carrying a different history, a different level of confidence and a different set of needs. We are all beginning something this September but none of us are starting from the same place.
September gives leaders a natural opportunity to notice at work and beyond. As Ralph Waldo Emerson penned “Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.”
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