The Leadership Star

2CONTEXT

 

A man was walking down the road when he came across a building site. Soon he came to a worker on his knees, laying bricks.

He asked the man, ‘What are you doing?’

‘I'm a bricklayer,’ said the man. ‘I'm laying bricks.’

A bit further along he came to another worker, standing alongside a partially built wall.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the man.

‘I'm a bricklayer,’ said the man. ‘I'm building a wall so I can feed my family.’

He then saw a third man, up on a scaffold, rapidly adding bricks to a wall. This man moved much more quickly than the other two workers and seemed from his body language to be genuinely enjoying his work.

‘Hello there!’ he called up to the worker. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I'm building a cathedral,’ called back the worker. ‘I'm serving God.’

The story of the three bricklayers neatly summarises the power and benefit of giving people a sense of purpose in what they do. One worker has a skill and gets paid to use it. He's indifferent about what he's building and just happy to have a job. Another recognises that his skill supports his family's wellbeing. He's working hard so he can keep the job and continue supporting his family. But he'd probably leave if someone offered him more money to go elsewhere.

The third bricklayer, however, feels connected to a higher purpose — building a cathedral in order to serve God. His satisfaction comes from knowing that ...