Leading From Good To Great – The Newly-wed Couple

Here is another story to start a new week and the lesson to be learned:

A couple just got married and they returned from their wonderful honeymoon to set up their new home. In the past, the new wife had not done much cooking in her life. Being excited as a new wife, she wanted to give her husband a special treat and so she got up early in the morning to prepare breakfast. She fried some eggs, toasted the bread and poured him a big cup of coffee. She hoped her husband would be pleased with her breakfast preparation and waited for some words of praise. The husband took a few bites and commented, “It’s just not like my Mom’s usual breakfast cooking.”

Undaunted by the negative comments and with a strong zeal to have a good start as husband and wife, she was determined to try again the next morning. She diligently got up early in the morning to prepare the same breakfast for her husband. She received the same response, “It’s just not like my Mom’s usual breakfast cooking.”

She made the breakfast two more times and two more times she received the same response. She became frustrated and indignant. The next morning, she made the eggs as hard as rubber. She burnt the bacon. She toasted the bread until it turned black like charcoal and made the coffee like mud.

She put the breakfast in front of her husband and waited for the response. Her husband sniffed the coffee, took one look at his plate and said, “Hey! It’s just like Mom used to make!”

Leadership Lesson:

Leaders cannot live in the past. What makes them successful yesterday cannot guarantee today’s success. There is a tendency to dwell in the past, glorify the past and not looking into the future. We can learn from the past and at the same time move forward into the future. The leadership style of command and control can bring good memories of your success, but they do not work anymore in today’s environment. How difficult it is for leaders to change when they have no change in their attitude. Leaders need hindsight, insight and foresight.