Leadership Lessons From My Teenage Daughter

The idea of putting others first for the sake of a larger group is not just a challenge for a 17-year-old. It's a human challenge.

By Paul Walker

I have four kids. Two are wired to be willing to try and possibly fail at anything. They make more friends in a day than many do in a lifetime. The other two, including my 17-year-old daughter Halle, are wired a bit more toward the introvert side of things, more than happy to stay in their clearly-defined comfort zones.

Halle is a high school junior, and is a hard-working competitive swimmer. When Halle was a freshman and then a sophomore, the seniors on her swim team made a point to include her, to notice her strengths, and coach her on how to improve. They built her up in a way that lifted the ceiling of what she thought she could achieve. She looked up to these senior girls, and improved greatly in that time. As a parent, it was really cool to watch.

As a few years have gone by and she’s become an upperclassman, Halle has swapped roles: She’s the one with the opportunity to elevate others, in that she can extend herself to encourage and coach the many up-and-coming swimmers. But perhaps like many of us, extending herself beyond a group of closer friends might not be her natural inclination.

When I say, "Not her natural inclination," that doesn’t mean she's not taking her responsibilities seriously. On the contrary—she is, in ways that make me, her mom, and her coaches proud. But I think Halle's experience contains a valuable lesson for a lot of us (myself included) who find ourselves in roles where we have a chance to do more for others if we step out of our comfort zone.

Stephen R. Covey, who helped create FranklinCovey, used to regularly ask this one question:

How many times has someone in your life seen and communicated to you your worth and potential in ways that were beyond what you could see for yourself at the time?

Thinking about that inspiring question prompts me to now ask: How is that any different from what Halle's teammates did for her, and what she now has the chance to do for others?

Halle's opportunity is the same one we're fortunate to be presented with in our work at FranklinCovey. Enabling greatness in other people is a form of leadership that goes beyond something that serves the ego or pads a young person’s college application; it's service for the sake of helping others in order to benefit something that’s larger than the both of you.

It’s unselfish, but in a way that paradoxically has great rewards for both the recipient of that support as well as the one elevating the next cohort.

Whether that happens on a high school swim team, where everyone's time contributes to the overall score, or in an organization 1,000 employees strong, the lessons are the same. In Dr. Covey’s landmark book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” he writes compellingly about the journey from dependence to independence to, most importantly, interdependence.

This idea of putting others first for the sake of a larger group is not just a challenge for a 17-year-old. It's a human challenge. It's one of the lessons we have to learn over and over again. The balance of choosing what’s good for the team versus what feels right for Halle is one that pops up for her often.

Of course, these challenges won't stop once high school does. Explaining that to Halle, however, is really just another way of reminding myself, too. Getting to watch a 17-year-old version of myself learn to make choices I would love to go back and try over again is a powerful reminder that we are all capable of greatness. And when those around us help our greatness shine just a little more, amazing things can happen.