Top Shelf Take: Stay Out of the Woods

Stay Out of the Woods

A class trip with 8th grade son taught David an unexpected lesson about leadership.

As a chaperone, he learned his job wasn’t to do things for the students—it was to keep them safe, encourage them, and let them figure things out. Watching them struggle to build a survival shelter reinforced a lesson that applies directly to leadership: sometimes stepping in isn’t helping.

The takeaway: Don’t confuse helping with doing. Give people room to struggle, learn, and succeed on their own.