There are so many examples of leaders today trying to get their employees to ‘look on the bright side’ despite all the layoffs and hard times surrounding them. What is needed instead in these situations is empathy – acknowledging how difficult the situation is, that we recognize the obstacles ahead and that they’re not in it alone.

Reading your story, Sharon, I have no doubt that this is exactly the message you’ve imparted to your daughter, enabling her to draw in on both her inner strength and those around her to see through these rough times.

A wonderful example of how leadership is not merely a position or title; it’s a disposition in how we choose to serve ourselves and those around us.

You have struck a resounding chord in this post that hearkens many of us to look within, to find the good courage Joshua speaks to in the ancient Hebrew texts. More than that, you have provided an opportunity for us to relate your daughter’s experience to matters that touch our hearts. We can feel your daughter’s pain and confusion and faith as she, like “Minty,” Harriet’s nickname as a child, must find the courage she does not know she already possesses. With your compassionate urging through tough love, your daughter has shown us a young lady who may, at times, doubt her courage but never her greater self.

We learn from your daughter’s story what it means to face a daunting world that seemingly offers no protection from cruelty—a world, at least in the darkest hours, with precious few people to turn to (in this case, perhaps as few as her God and her mum). But we learn something else, too. She, like any number of our inspirational heroes and heroines, is made from stronger stuff than we.

In servant leadership, we easily distinguish four key qualities evident in the ever-present ebb and flow of your unique relationship with your daughter: character, compassion, communication, and courage. Your daughter’s good courage, it seems to me, did not suddenly appear but, instead, was nurtured from her childhood, giving impetus to her later achievements you write about now. From her ordeal, we learn about the lasting, oft times cumulative effect of choices—choices deeply affected by our character. By accepting her plight without bitterness, your daughter allows the unfairness she has faced to make her stronger. In so doing, her story compassionately communicates how each of us can be more effective at helping another escape the heartache so familiar to her.
Through it all, her courage grows … and so does ours.

This story, as you have suggested, has everything to do with leadership. Like Minty, your daughter commits to courageous action and decides deep within to face her burden because “this is what I have to do!” And her actions rekindle within me a life of faith in the human spirit that uniquely lends itself to quiet leadership. I, for one, greatly appreciate you (and your daughter) sharing it with us. Thank you, Sharon.

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