Whom did I help today?
November 9, 2026
"We can, if we will, lend a helping hand in many places where help is needed." — Archbishop Alban Goodier
Goodier goes on to describe a man who made a rule to spend an hour every day doing something for somebody, and who got remarkably creative at finding ways to be useful.
I think about that man often when I think about what makes a great teammate.
Helping rarely shows up on a job description or a performance review. It's the engineer who stays ten minutes after the meeting to walk a new hire through the system. It's the person who flags a problem in someone else's area instead of assuming it's not their concern. It's the colleague who reviews your work without being asked.
Here's what I've noticed about the people who build that habit:
They treat usefulness as a daily practice, not a mood. The man in the quote made it a rule. Rules survive busy weeks, bad days, and tight deadlines. Good intentions don't.
They get inventive. "Wonderful were the devices he discovered" is my favorite line. Once you start looking for ways to help, you find them everywhere: a shared template, a quick intro to the right person, a question that unblocks someone.
They give more than the obvious. Goodier says we can give much more than "gold and silver." At work, that means time, attention, knowledge, and credit, which often cost nothing and mean far more than a formal resource.
They make teams faster. The help that never gets tracked is often what keeps projects moving. Trust, speed, and quality all rise when people are quietly looking out for one another.
As a leader, I try to ask myself at the end of the day: whom did I help today?
What's one small way you could be useful to someone on your team this week?
www.listeningbeard.com/pax
#Leadership #Teamwork #ServantLeadership #WorkplaceCulture #Engineering
