Last week I was driving down the highway when all of a sudden the car in front of me veered over to the other lane. In that moment all my drivers education training flashed into my mind!

I saw a family of ducks in the middle of a 3 lane high way

I moved over to the next lane, barley missing the family of ducks.

Then I peered into my rearview mirror and noticeda long line of cars behind me.

Image courtesy of Chanpipat / DigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Chanpipat / DigitalPhotos.net

I don’t know what happened to those ducks, but I don’t think they made it to the other side of the road. (insert joke here).

As I continued to drive down the road I began to think about my near death experience a few minutes earlier.

I actually got angry with the mother duck. Ok, not really, but here is what I am thinking at this point.

Why would you lead your family out onto the highway? Did you not see the danger?

Here is what I learned:

We must be careful where we lead people. They are trusting you, believing you are taking them towards something greater than themselves.

The little baby ducks trusted their mother to lead them safely towards wherever they were going.

When we are leading people we need to be careful where we are going because our influence can have a major impact on their lives.

In your case leading people might not be the matter of life and death like those ducks in the middle of the road. However, people are giving up their time, energy and investing their emotional bandwidth with you.

That is a huge investment by them and something not to be taken lightly.

I hate wasting time. I don’t mind giving my time, but I hate it when my time evaporates and achieves nothing.

I feel as if we need to make sure the time we request from others is well worth it.

They are trusting you, believing you are taking them towards something greater than themselves. Tweet this!

When we lead, let’s lead people towards purpose and meaning. Let’s take them on a journey. That way when they look back, they will be glad they had that experience with you.

How do you determine the direction you take your team?