I was listening to the latest story on NPR's This I Believe and came across an essay that strikes me as something that should be common sense, but few people practices it.

The title of the essay is "The Presumption of Decency", by Edward Glaeser. In the essay, the author spoke about how minor offenses committed by people often make us furious for hours. He proposes that much of this stress can be avoided if we presume that people are decent.

Dr. Glaeser states in his essay, "If we hold tightly to the view that people around us are as decent as ourselves, trying, like we are, to muddle honorably through life, it is harder to turn them into villains and to turn ourselves into creatures of irrational judgment." This statement is very powerful. As leaders, we must realize that it is impossible for everything to go smoothly. When things goes wrong, we must keep in mind that we need to address the situation, not attack the person. When we presume that people (as a whole) are decent, then we focus our effort toward solving the problem, and not waste valuable resources playing the blame game.

As leaders, it is important for us to set an example and show those that we lead that people are decent. If we focus on this, we will accomplish more. We show those that we lead that there is a better way to accomplishing what needs to be done, and attacking someone will not bring you closer to your goals.