“It is.”
“Anything easier?”
“Complaining.”
The kid laughed.
David looked again at the torn card.
“Leadership is mostly choosing the harder useful thing over the easier satisfying one.”
Nadine called from across the lobby:
“David!”
He looked over.
“We’re leaving!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The private smiled.
“She outranks you?”
“Always has.”
David walked away.
A year later, David received a package.
No return name.
Inside was a book.
Hardcover.
Leadership Under Pressure.
Author:
Gregory Jenkins.
David stared.
“No.”
Nadine looked over.
“What?”
“He wrote a book.”
“Who?”
David turned the cover.
Her eyebrows rose.
“Oh.”
The former officer had spent years after his dismissal working private security jobs.
Then security training.
According to the author biography, he had completed a degree in organizational psychology and worked with companies on de-escalation and verification procedures.
David laughed.
Nadine took the book.
“You going to read it?”
“No.”
She opened it.
“Foreword mentions you.”
David groaned.
“Absolutely not.”
She began reading aloud.
“This book began with the worst professional decision of my life—”
David grabbed the book.
“Stop.”
Nadine laughed.
David read privately later.
Jenkins did not make himself the hero.
Good.
He described the incident.
His arrogance.
The investigation.
His dismissal.
The years afterward.
One chapter was titled:
THE NEED TO BE RIGHT.
Another:
AUTHORITY AND HUMILIATION.
Another:
WHEN EXPERIENCE BECOMES BIAS.
David disagreed with some of it.
Appreciated more than expected.
At the end Jenkins wrote:
I once destroyed a military credential because the person holding it challenged my judgment.
I told myself I was protecting a military installation.
In reality, I was protecting my ego.
The distinction cost me my career.
The man whose identification I destroyed later wrote me one sentence I have kept for years:
“When you think you already know, verify anyway.”
That sentence became the foundation of every class I now teach.
I cannot undo what happened.
I can only make what happened expensive enough, personally and professionally, that I do not waste the lesson.
David closed the book.
Nadine watched from the sofa.
“Well?”
“He got better at writing.”
“Anything else?”
David looked at her.
“I think he changed.”
“That make you happy?”
David considered.
“Yes.”
A little.
Not because Jenkins’s change repaired the past.
Because punishment without change was merely conclusion.
Change offered possibility.
David emailed him.
Subject:
BOOK.
Body:
Read it.
You quoted me without permission.
Good work.
—D. Hayes
Jenkins replied three minutes later.
I’ll take that as a positive review.
David answered:
Don’t push it.
That was the last time they communicated.
Enough.
At seventy-one, David’s health began failing.
Nothing dramatic.