Showing humility every day is not easy. The best way to do that is to help others and live a life of servanthood.
Helping others is a choice that we all have to make. We either want to help others, or we don’t. The day I decided to start helping others within my team, was the day when things started to change.
1. Helping Your Team
We started to perform better as a team, we all started to help each other, and our relationships were getting stronger. When we decide to start helping others, we are deliberately building relationships, and trust with the person we are helping.
When we as a team started to perform better, our department, and our organisation was performing better too. It has a multiplying effect across everyone when we all decide to help each other.
If it wasn’t for all of the personal growth activities I have done over the last 20 years of my engineering career. 11 of those years being in leadership positions, I wouldn’t be able to write this article, and teach you these lessons from my personal experiences.
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All of the leadership books I have read, videos I’ve watched, events I’ve attended, and work experiences are all rolled up into the resources I am providing. There are more resources to come in the future too. This is all help for you, and the others who you share this article and my other articles with.
The many mistakes I have made in the last 20 years, the lessons that I have learned from those mistakes, and the person I have become, is my way of helping you.
2. Your Purpose
Now it is the present day, and the person I am becoming is a highly effective team leader. However, nobody is perfect, so I am constantly maintaining myself, and overhauling myself. I have teams and mentees that I need to help, and I am responsible for.
I have a purpose and I am living and breathing that purpose every day. It is my job to help you to be the same, whatever your purpose is. It is my job to help you to become the person you want to be. It is my job to help you to strive towards and eventually become a highly effective leader.
As I’ve explained earlier, I had the attitude of every person for themselves when it came to my work. I thought that if you could do tasks on your own, rather than accept help from teammates, it showed strength. When actually, it wasn’t.
So, when I realised this, and I got over myself, I started to help others. This started in 2009. Since then, I have made it a priority to always help others. No matter if they were in my team or from another department.
It has been an 11 year journey of being helpful, which coincides in exactly the same amount of time I have been studying, and working in leadership.
I couldn’t have imagined then the teams I would be a part of, and the size of the teams I led. Back in 2009, I didn’t have the vision or the size of team that I have now.
As you and many other people are reading this article, and my other articles, I am on yours and every other reader’s team. I want to help you. I want to help the people who watch my video’s, listen to my audios, read my blog posts, and read my social media posts.
My followers are ever growing, and I want to help every single one of you. You are very important to me, and anything I can do to help you become the person you want to be, and a highly effective leader, I am going to do.
I have a purpose and a burning desire to help more, and more people every day. I want to do this while I am also working on myself to become the best person I can be every day. However, I put others first, as that is how I have learned from others who helped me in the past.
3. Your Influence
Hopefully what you are learning will enable you to do the same when helping others. I want you, and the people you help in the future to become great. I want you to become highly effective. I want you to become a leader who can make a difference in the world, and change the world.
A lot of people who do the same thing I am doing, writing articles, and creating other resources, do so for the money. That is fine, I have no issue with that, except they are telling their customers that they are doing it to “help others.”
When in reality, their objective is to earn money. For me, money is important but it is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that I help you to improve, and strive to become a highly effective leader.
The fact that I get paid well for it is a by-product of fulfilling my purpose. The more people you help from applying what you learn from my articles, you will eventually have the same result as a by-product too.
However, if you focus on money rather than helping people, you will not give absolutely 100% to your cause and putting others first.
No matter what team you’re on at the moment or will be in the future, there is always somebody you can help. Whether that be help in the task they are currently doing, help in their job, or help outside of work.
If you can help them, then it is an opportunity for you to increase your influence, and build on your relationship with the person. When I started to deliberately help people, I didn’t care what they needed help with. If I was in a position to help someone, then I would do it.
If they needed any knowledge that I had, or needed my help to find knowledge, or needed me to check their work. Whatever it was, I was happy to help, because it was newly found purpose that I had to fulfil every day.
Most people on most engineering teams throughout the world are not taught that helping each other is the best way to produce great results. I was always taught to get on with the job, and if you had a problem then tell the boss.
I have interacted with a lot of engineers over the years, and most of them have been taught the same thing. So, these team members will not realise how valuable they are to each other, and that just a little bit of help to their fellow teammate can be of great value.
As they are not aware to make helping others a priority, they are falling short of fulfilling their potential. Each team member has unique experiences that they could share with others, and help them. If they do not do this then they are holding themselves, and their teammates back.
It is our job to change that, and turn these team members into highly effective leaders. Are you up for that challenge?
4. Your Potential
You have the potential to create so much value in the world by helping others. By helping others and sharing your knowledge, and ideas, you are fulfilling your potential. Don’t allow yourself or anybody else to hold you back from that. I believe you can do it. Do you believe you can do it and help others?
Believe me, when you start on your journey to helping other people, it will take many paths. What I mean is, you will be helping people at work in your team. You will be helping friends and family with any issues that you can contribute to.
You will be helping people in the local pub. You will be helping people down your local golf club. It is a bug that you will not want to get rid of, because you know you are serving your purpose and you are fulfilling your potential.
Every day I wake up, I leave the house knowing I need to help somebody today, otherwise it will not be a productive day for me. You will start to feel the same. Trust me.
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A highly effective leader is not always the most valuable member of the team, he/she is the member of the team who makes the most members valuable. That is how a highly effective leader helps, and lifts up their team.
You will also begin to do this as you start to share what you are learning on these pages. The impact you will have on your team members, and the others that you will help will be very powerful.
Helping others is very important when it comes to being a highly effective leader. The sense of purpose it gives you is so high that you will want to serve it every day.
You will still have enough strength and energy to ensure you work on yourself too. The difference you can make in the world by helping others is huge, and it should not be underestimated. How big of a difference do you want to make?
You and I have the ability and the resources to help a lot of people. It takes courage to start. Who is going to be the first person you help?
I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.
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All the best,
It does take humility to be a great leader. When our focus is on serving others, we become a valuable asset to all those we contact. By doing so, we are seen as having integrity and leading in an authentic way. Many useful insights in your article, Tom. All the best, Joseph
Hi Joseph,
It is a privilege to receive your comments on my posts, thank you.
Keep doing your best to serve your people and show them how they can serve their people too.
Take action on the useful insights you have learned about on my post and share them with others.
All the best,
Tom
This post really shifted the way I look at leadership. In the past, I thought being a strong leader meant carrying everything on my own shoulders, but your perspective on servanthood reminded me that real strength comes from helping others succeed. Since putting that into practice, I’ve noticed stronger connections within my team and a higher level of trust. Not only has collaboration improved, but results have followed too—we’re more efficient and motivated because people feel supported.
Your words also challenged me to rethink my daily priorities. Now I start each day asking myself, who can I help today? That simple shift has given my work more purpose and made leadership feel less like a burden and more like an opportunity to multiply value through others. Thank you for sharing this—it’s already making a real difference in the way I lead.
Hi Mark,
Thank you for sharing your insights on my post, I am so pleased that this has resonated with you.
It’s great how honest you are with us and sharing how you first thought of leadership, and that you are accepting of new learning and sharing your thoughts.
I hope the first person you help today give you a huge sense of fulfilment and you can see how they and you grow together.
If you need any further help then please do get in touch with me and we can set up a call.
All the best,
Tom
This was such a powerful reminder that true leadership is rooted in service. I love how you highlighted that helping others isn’t a weakness but a strength that multiplies trust, performance, and influence. The idea that “a highly effective leader is the one who makes the most members valuable” really resonated with me—it flips the old mindset of “every person for themselves” into something much more meaningful. Thank you for sharing your journey and showing how purpose and humility can transform teams.
Hi Teresa,
Thank you for sharing your comment on my post, means a lot to me.
I hope people can learn from your insights just as much as they can learn from mine.
Keep working on yourself every day to be the most highly effective leader you can be for your people. Show them the way through your example and serve them as best you can.
All the best,
Tom