My leadership philosophy often draws on my previous work in road safety and injury prevention—which leads me to reorient thinking towards collective goals and causes.
In that vein, my driving career has quickly taught us that our overall goal behind the wheel should not simply be to reach our own destination as quickly as possible.
Rather, our goal behind the wheel is collective: that we all reach our destination safely. Efficiency is secondary, especially where context (weather, congestion) precludes it.
That said, I’m not immune to accepting that it’s nice when we do arrive more efficiently than we expected—but over decades, I find it easier to remind myself (as we learned in driving school!) that driving is ultimately about sharing the road. Even complying with the rules of the road is less about maintaining our driving privileges, and more about keeping each other safe.
That philosophy has changed how I interact with the transport system.
For years pre-pandemic, I let someone else drive; my regular commute to the office saw me run 5km to a bus terminal and take an express bus to work, showering there, and reversing that in the evening, taking one less car and set of emotions off the road altogether.
It was the ultimate manifestion of my love for public transport; back when I used to joke that Google Maps should add time to trips for parking. (They eventually added how available parking was at destinations.)
Where I do find myself behind the wheel, though, I try to employ plenty of other tactics to do my part to support collective safety.
Where possible, I build in buffers (my daughters razz me about us ending up at their activities way too early.) I also accept that others aren’t always placed to do the same, and that under time pressure, some will drive aggressively or discourteously; when that happens, it's easiest for me let things go and get out of their way, trusting that the authorities will address things if their behaviour is truly egregious.
Finally, I nowadays simply accept that it will take time—that even though we're steering the wheel, so many things lie well beyond our control. Congestion is the urban norm, rather than the exception, which means driving is about leaving time and space to react, helping folks out where needed, and keeping other road users safe.
I've also found this philosophy applies to organizations and teams; we work not only for our individual goals, but also in common purpose, our own hopes intertwined with aims of collective success.
Much like driving, then, our primary goal in working together lies beyond just us alone; we're meant to look out for each other and lend a helping hand, so that we can all succeed together and get to where we're going safely.
This post originally appeared on Lawrence's LinkedIn profile.
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