Whenever you ask someone to do or be anything, think of Mahatma Gandhi and the story of “The Little Boy and Sweets.” It is such a great example to live up to and delivers an invaluable lesson on the character of
leadership.
Coming to see Gandhi, a woman waited in line for more than half a day with her son at her side, in order to have an audience with him. When at last it was her turn to speak to him, the woman said, “Mahatma, please. Tell my son he must stop eating sweets. It is ruining his health, his teeth. It affects his mood. Every time he has sweets, I see the change in him, and there is nothing I can do to stop him from eating more and more. He’s a good boy, but when it comes to sweets, he becomes a liar and a thief and a
cheat, and I’m afraid it will ruin his life. Please, Mahatma, tell him to stop.”
Gandhi looked at the boy for a long moment as he cowered there, trying to hide in his mother’s sari. Finally, Gandhi broke the silence and said, “Come back to me in two weeks’ time.” Confused, and a bit disappointed that he could not simply tell her son to stop eating sugar, the mother left with her son.
Two weeks later the woman returned with her child and once again waited in line for hours before finally it was their turn to see the Master. “Mahatma,” said the mother, “we have returned. We came to you for help with this boy and eating sweets, and you asked us to come back after two weeks.”
“Yes, of course I remember,” said Gandhi. “Come here, child.” He motioned the boy forward.
The boy, at the urging and prodding of his mother, disentangled himself from her sari and stepped up to
Gandhi, who reached out, put his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and pulled him closer. He looked the boy squarely in the eye and said, firmly, “Don’t eat sweets.”
Then he released him. “That’s it?” said the mother. “That’s all you’re going to say?” She was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you just tell him that two weeks ago?”
“Because,” replied Gandhi, “two weeks ago I was still
eating sweets myself. I could not ask him to stop eating
sweets so long as I had not stopped either.”
“Ask only for others to do what you have done yourself first.”
If you really want to have leadership influence, you have no choice but, as Gandhi, to be the change you want to see in others.
