Y’all know the vibe. We’re the leaders, the shot-callers, the ones with the answers stitched into the lining of our blazers. We’re so busy being the mentor, the guide, the GPS with a corner office, that we forget what it’s like to not have the map. We’re too busy trying to be the ‘sage on the stage’ to remember the power of being the ‘guide on the side.’ But I’m here to tell you, the biggest level-up in your leadership playbook isn’t in a book you read; it’s in the person you think you’re supposed to teach. To get there, I gotta take you back to the fifth-grade playground, during the most high-stakes corporate merger of our time: the dodgeball draft.
Picture it. My turn to pick. The entire playground hierarchy is on the line. I’m picking all the biggest, fastest kids, the sure-fire winners. Then my trusted advisor leans over and tells me to pick scrawny Yvonne Lewis. Yvonne? I’m thinking, “Dude, we’re trying to win, not start a non-profit.” But I did it. And for the next five weeks, our team was undefeated, led by our new MVP, affectionately known as “Yvonne the Arm.” In that moment, the light went on. The kid I thought I was generously adding to my team—the person I was supposed to be mentoring—ended up schooling me on what it means to win. She wasn’t just a player; she was the whole damn playbook.
That’s the kind of lesson you can’t download. It’s the raw material for the best spoken word poetry, the kind of real talk that separates a boss from a leader. As a motivational poet, I’ve seen that the most inspirational breakthroughs happen when the person with the title stops talking and starts listening. Maybe becoming the world’s best leader isn’t about having all the answers, but about finding the person who has the one answer you didn’t know you needed. That’s a truth this Grammy Nominated Spoken Word Artist Sekou Andrews tries to live by, because being a vanguard artist in your field means you’re always a student first. So look around your office. Who’s your Yvonne Lewis? Go find the MVP you’ve been overlooking. Then get out of their way and watch them change the game.
