Andy Andrews Quote on Leadership and How To Properly Influence Others To Keep Moving Forward

“It is never the duty of a leader to struggle for someone else;  a leader must encourage others to struggle and assure them that the struggles are worthwhile.  Do battle with the challenges of your present, and you will unlock the prizes of your future.”

Andy Andrews, The Traveler’s Gift

Beyond the Quote (219/365)

I repeat: It is never the duty of a leader to struggle for someone else. Nor is it their duty to take the struggle away from, to suffer the pain for, or to handle challenges that someone else is facing. A leader needs to live their own life as much as the follower needs to live theirs. But even more importantly, it is the duty of the leader to lead the follower to a better place—and doing the work for them doesn’t get them there. If anything, it handicaps them and makes them more vulnerable to the future rather than more resilient.

As Andrews points out above, if the leader is going to help their followers become stronger, then their goal should be to support others through their struggle, encourage them to get back on their feet when they’re down, and assure them that enduring and overcoming the obstacles ahead will be worthwhile. And in order to do that, the leader needs to know which struggles are worthwhile and which ones aren’t. This takes life experience that is only gained from research and personal development, trial-and-error, deliberate personal reflection, and mentorship. Without this type of experience, the leader will be limited in their ability to properly guide those who come to them for advice.

More specifically, leaders need to gain a personal understanding about the long-term benefit of struggle versus the handicapping that occurs with short-term comforting solutions. They need to learn how to zoom out from the micro-struggles that make up a person’s life and teach them how to see the macro vision of where those micro struggles are leading them. They need to help them see how the daily battles that they’re facing will ultimately help them strengthen their character and unlock a future that they desire. Let’s look at an example.

Let’s say someone is struggling with a project that they’re working on. If they come to you for help you can offer them the short term (comforting) solution of doing part of (or all of) the project for them. Or you can offer them the long term solution of helping them understand how to better do the project. Maybe they’re having a hard time researching—rather than researching for them, teach them how to research better. Maybe they’re having a hard time organizing their thoughts into a coherent manner—rather than organizing their ideas for them, teach them how to organize better. Maybe they’re having a hard time presenting—rather than presenting for them, help them build their confidence, memory, and charisma with practice. This way, the next time they have a project they will be more ready and able to handle it on their own.

To be clear, a leader’s role isn’t about leaving others to struggle, it’s about encouraging them to struggle. It’s not about throwing them into the fire and letting them burn, it’s about making them aware of the fires ahead and helping them find the courage within themselves to brave them on their own. While the leader might know of the long term benefits of enduring challenge and pain, it should never be assumed that the follower does, too. The leader needs to not just remind followers of the benefit of overcoming challenges, but assure them of its benefit. And reminding and assuring are not the same thing. Someone reminding you that skydiving with a certain parachute is safe and someone assuring you that it’s safe produce very different feelings. I don’t know about you but, I want to be around someone who can assure me with confidence.

And if you want to be the best leader you can be, then that should be your goal, too. Gain as much life experience as you can by engaging with life whenever possible. As you collect that experience, learn to zoom out and see the long-term direction behind short-term actions. Understand that learning how to research, organize, and present your own project(s) is far more valuable in the long run than having someone else do it for you (even if by having them do it it turns out much better). And once you internalize these lessons, you too will be able to encourage and assure with confidence and personal insight for those in your inner circles. And the prizes of the future will yours and theirs for the taking.

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