What an Interview with a 14 Year Old Teaches about Servant Leadership

A few years ago, I had the privilege of volunteering my time to the Sandbox, an outstanding Charlotte charity.   The Sandbox locks arms with our community and walks with families whose child has cancer or life altering illness.  The goal is to help honorees and their families during the most tumultuous times of their lives so they can focus on what’s most important – Believing and Healing!  The Sandbox organizes an annual Evening of Believing prom for kids and teens facing cancer or life altering illness.  Each child is paired with a mentor who works with the child throughout the year leading up to the prom and then serves as their prom date.  Mentors attend a meet and greet where they meet their child and the family, they attend a try-on day where they pick out outfits for the prom, they become a friend and supporter of not just the ill child but of the family.  Mentors are also responsible for fundraising $500 to support the cost of the prom.  Finally, the mentor walks the red carpet with their new friend and enjoys an awesome evening where the rigors of treatment take a backseat so that the honoree can focus on having fun with new friends and family.

Roughly 175 teens age 14-18 apply to be mentors, but only 100 can be chosen.  I was asked to help interview prospective mentors.  I spend much of my time working with senior executives, so the opportunity to volunteer my time and expertise to engage with teenage mentors was one I could not pass on.  I spent a morning interviewing prospective mentors.  We were specifically looking for teens who have a passion for giving back to the community and who are driven by their hearts.  Some of these kids were interviewing because a parent made them do it or because they know it will look good on a college application.  We were looking for the teens who were there by choice and really want to make a difference in someone’s life.  Carolina, my co-interviewer and I spent the morning conducting 10-minute interviews with a diverse group of Charlotte area teens.  Overall, I was blown away by the kids.  They were an amazing group of kids with great potential.  I could not imagine myself in their shoes at their age.  I was too busy playing sports and hanging out with my friends to think about doing something so community focused, so kudos to these great kids.

As someone who teaches organizations how to make better hiring decisions, I know a thing or two about conducting interviews.  We asked several open-ended questions to gauge the interest of the potential mentors; “Why are you here?” “Have you been exposed to other kids with life altering illness, how did that make you feel?”  “How would you go about the fundraising?”  “What would you do to continue the relationship after the prom?” just to name a few of the questions.

Most of the kids we interviewed were a bit nervous as could be expected, but they were all well prepared and had good answers.  Some were a bit too shy or appeared to be there because of an overbearing parent, but most were there because they genuinely care and wanted to be a part of someone else’s life.

One particular interview stood out to me.  We met a fourteen-year-old girl who was very timid and shy.  She struggled to answer most of our questions and had weak answers to most.  Thinking I needed to do something to determine if it was just nerves or whether she was truly disinterested, I tried to mix up my line of questioning.  I asked her the following question:

“If you could take your mentee to any concert with backstage passes to meet the performer, what concert would you take them to?”

Having a teenage daughter, myself, I was waiting to hear an answer that included Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, One Direction or some other pop band that would further date me as a middle-aged uncool dad.  Her answer shocked me.

Rather than naming a concert, this shy timid girl with conviction said,

“I would ask my mentee who his or her favorite band is and ask them to choose the concert they would want to attend.”

Wow, what an amazing and selfless answer.  This girl, at age fourteen understood something so important.  The notion of servant leadership.  We live in a society filled with self-absorbed leaders.  As skeptical as I had become about this one girl, her answer was by far and away the best one of the day.

The lesson here is that we must look past the façade in people and give them the opportunity to show off their potential.  Our interviewee showed her leadership potential that will serve her well as she grows and matures.

Do you possess servant leadership capabilities?

To learn more about The Sandbox, visit their website at http://gotsandbox.org/