When the Soviet Union overran and annexed Latvia back in 1940, the American Charge d’Affaires ad interim, John Wiley, worried that Red Cross supplies shipped to Latvia for humanitarian reasons would be seized by the Soviets. Wiley asked permission from the State Department to fly the United States flag above the Red Cross warehouse to deter Soviet interference. The State Department responded, “No precedent exists for such action.” Wiley promptly raised the American flag over the warehouse and cabled back, “As of this date, I have established precedent.”

Good for Wiley. He saw a situation where someone needed to do something, and Wiley became that someone. There’s a word for folks like that: Leader. Leaders volunteer for fire and EMS service, speak up at school board meetings, and organize activities for the kids at church. Leaders become ombudsmen for nursing home residents or serve as CASA volunteers advocating for children. Leaders launch fundraisers for cancer and accident victims. Leaders coach athletics and run for political office and actually try to do the job. Leaders make a difference!

Looking at Jesus, the best leader ever, shows that leadership begins in the heart; it starts with a passion to overcome a problem and help others. Isaiah 42:3 (NIV) predicts God’s Messiah will be a gentle and meek individual, saying, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” That sounds a lot like “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” until we read the rest of Isaiah’s verse: “In faithfulness he will bring forth justice…” That’s why Jesus warned in Luke 12:51, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division…” Jesus brought forgiveness of sin to believers, but it cost him his life.

Someone once quipped that “the only person who likes change is a baby with a dirty diaper.” Change agents must expect to ruffle feathers and elicit some criticism. When leaders push for action and champion change, they should anticipate pushback. Leadership guru John Maxwell says, “If you get kicked in the rear, you know you’re out front.”

The alternative is to do nothing and allow the problem to persist. Aristotle said, “Criticism is something you can avoid easily, by saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing.”

Robert Raikes couldn’t stand the status quo. A newspaper publisher living in Glouster, England in the latter half of the Eighteenth Century, Raikes was disturbed by the hooliganism of local youths on Sundays when businesses were closed. So, in 1780, Raikes engaged a group of local women who agreed to teach reading and the church catechism on Sundays, providing an opportunity for literacy and supervision for the young people. The experiment proved successful and by the time Raikes died in 1823, more than a half million students in the British Isles were enrolled in “Sunday School” and the movement had spread to America. When Horace Mann was selected as the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837, he built on Raikes’ foundation and urged that a free public education should be available for every student. Mann’s work in Massachusetts influenced legislators in other states, and today Mann is often called, “The Father of American Education.” It all started with one newspaper editor who saw a problem with unsupervised youths and decided to do something about it!

Can I emphasize that? Any fool can see a problem. Smart folks think about solutions to the problem. The folks who matter, however, are the people who see the problem, imagine a solution and then jump in to fix it! Sure, there are obstacles: a lack of time or resources, opposition from others, a desire to remain in the background and let others take the lead. But, as a church sign read years ago, “Excuses satisfy only the one who makes them.” Leaders are the people who refuse to make excuses; they get the job done!

When dying people talk about their regrets, they usually focus more on what they didn’t do rather than what they did – the business they wanted to start, the relationship they wanted to pursue, the job they wish they had applied for, the apology they couldn’t bring themselves to offer, the skill they wanted to master.

But leaders don’t usually have as many regrets because, when they saw something that needed doing, they did it. Instead of satisfying themselves with excuses, leaders change the world through action.

Be a leader!