force should arise.
But how can clerks who remain behind counters, measuring doth, selling shoes or hosiery, year in and year out, ever know what latent power for organization, what executive ability or initiative they possess? It is true that some of the more ambitious and courageous get out and start for themselves, but it does not follow that they are always abler than those who remain behind. Sometimes the greatest ability is accompanied by great modesty and even timidity. Then, again, employees conscious of great ability are often deterred from taking the risk of launching out for themselves because of possible disaster to those depending upon them for daily bread. But thrust great responsibility upon a man, drive him to desperation, and the demand will bring out what there is in him. It will call out his initiative, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness, his self-reliance, his power to adjust means to ends. If there are any elements of leadership in him, responsibility will call them out. It will test his power to do things.
I have in mind a young man who developed such amazing ability within six months from the date of a very important promotion, that he surprised everybody who knew him. Even his best friends did not believe that it was in him. But the great responsibilities, the desperate situation, thrust upon him brought out his reserve power, and he very quickly showed of what stuff he was made. This promotion, and a little stock in the concern, which had been given him, aroused his ambition and called out a mighty power which before he did not dream that he possessed.
Tens of thousands of young men and young women to-day are only waiting for a chance to show themselves, waiting for an opportunity to try their wings, and when the opportunity, the responsibility, comes they will be equal to anything that confronts them.
Proprietors of large concerns are often very much exercised by the death of a superintendent or lieutenant who has managed with exceptional ability. They are fearful that very disastrous results may follow, and. believe it will be almost impossible to fill his place; but, while they are looking around to find a man big enough for the place, some one, perhaps, who was under the former chief, attends to his duties temporarily, and makes even a better manager than his predecessor.
Young men and young women are rising out of the ranks constantly, everywhere, who fill these positions oftentimes much better than those who drop out and whose places it was thought almost impossible to fill. Do not be afraid to pile responsibility upon your employees. You will be amazed to see how quickly they will get out from under their load and what unexpected ability they will develop.
Many employers are always looking for people outside of their own establishment to fill important vacancies, simply because they cannot see or appreciate a man’s ability until he has actually demonstrated it; but how can he demonstrate it until he has the chance?
There are probably to-day scores of young men in every one of our great business houses who are as capable as the present heads. There is no position that cannot be filled as well or better than it is being filled now, by someone who is still in the ranks and who has not yet been heard from in any distinctive way.
When some great statesman falls, the people often look about, to find that there is apparently no one to fill his place; but from an unexpected source—perhaps from a little out-of-the-way town, from the common ranks—there comes a man who is equal to the emergency.
The way to bring out the reserve in a man is to pile responsibility upon him. If there is anything in him this will reveal it.
Some of us never quite come to ourselves in fullness and power until driven to desperation. It is when we are shipwrecked like Robinson Crusoe upon an island, with nothing but our own brain and hands, nothing but resources locked up deep in ourselves, that we really come to complete self-discovery. A captain never knows what is in his men until they have been tested by a gale at sea which threatens shipwreck.
That there are great potencies and power possibilities within us which we may never know is proved by the tremendous forces that are aroused in ordinary people in some great crisis or emergency.
The elevator boy may never have dreamed that there was anything heroic in his nature. He may never have thought there was a possibility of his rising in the world to the importance of the men whom he lifted to their offices; but the building takes fire and this boy, who was seldom noticed by anyone, who did not show any special signs of ability, in a few minutes develops the most heroic qualities. He runs his elevator up through the burning floors when choked with smoke, the hot cable blistering his hands, and rescues a hundred people who, but for him, might have lost their lives.
A ship is wrecked at sea, and a poor immigrant becomes the hero of the hour, commanding a lifeboat, and giving orders with calmness, authority, and force, when others have lost their heads.
A hospital takes fire and the delicate, timid girl invalid develops into a heroine almost instantly and does a giant’s work.
In fires and wrecks, in great disasters or emergencies of all kinds, are enacted deeds of ‘daring and of sublime heroism which, before the great test came, would have been thought impossible by those who did them.
No one ever knows just how much dynamic force there is in him until tested by a great emergency or a supreme crisis. Oftentimes men reach middle life, and even later, before they really discover themselves. Until some great emergency, loss, or sorrow, has tested their timber they cannot tell how much strain they can stand. No emergency great enough to call out their latent power ever before confronted them, and they did not themselves realize what they would be equal to until the great crisis confronted them.
I have known of several instances where daughters reared in luxury were suddenly thrown upon their own resources by the death of their parents and the loss of their inherited fortunes. They had not been brought up to work, did not know how to do anything useful, had no trade, and no idea how to earn a livelihood; and yet all at once they developed marvelous ability for doing things. The power was there, latent; but responsibility had not hitherto been thrust upon them.
Young men suddenly forced into positions of tremendous responsibility by accident or death are often not the same men in six months. They have developed strong manly qualities which no one ever dreamed they possessed. Responsibility has made men of them. And it makes women of inexperienced and untried girls who are suddenly thrust into an emergency where they are obliged to conduct a business or support a family.
Many people distrust their initiative because they have not had an opportunity to exercise it. The monotonous routine of doing the same work year in and year out does not tend to develop new faculties. All the mental powers must be exercised, strengthened, before we can measure their possibilities.
I know young men who believe in everybody but themselves. They seem to have no doubt about other people accomplishing what they undertake, but are always shaky about themselves: “Oh, do not put me at the head of this or that; somebody else can do it better than I.” They shrink from responsibility because they lack self-faith.
The only way to develop power is to resolve early in life never to let an opportunity for doing so go by.
Never shrink from anything which will give you more discipline, better training, and enlarged experience. No matter how distasteful force yourself into it. There is nothing like responsibility for developing ability. Never mind if the position is hard; take it and make up your mind that you are going to fill it better than it was ever before filled.
I once heard a man say he regretted more than anything else in his life that he had indulged his natural inclination to decline every position of responsibility offered him. He was naturally so shy that any position which attracted attention or gave him the least publicity was distasteful to him. His magnificent possibilities remain undeveloped because he has never had that responsibility which calls out
