Leandro was the first person who taught me something about leadership before I understood I was being taught. I was an intern at Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, eighteen years old, doing work I didn’t fully grasp yet. One learning he shared stayed with me since then.
He talked about a man with a package that had to reach the airport. If it missed the flight, everything depending on it collapses. The only uncertainty was the city between him and the runway.
In one version, the man hires a taxi, hands over the package, gives the destination, and stays behind. From that moment, the task stops being something he does and becomes something he expects. Minutes turn into an hour. Traffic thickens. A collision blocks a major avenue. When the car returns empty-handed, the conclusion is immediate: the driver chose the wrong route, should have known better. The failure is clear, and it belongs to someone else.
In the other version, the man gets into the taxi with the package. The city is the same, the traffic is the same, the accident still happens. But when the car slows, decisions are shared. They talk about detours, about side streets that might be risky but faster, about calling ahead to buy a few extra minutes, about when to accept the flight will be missed and focus on minimizing the damage. Some choices help, others don’t. The package still arrives too late. But when the taxi stops, there is no argument, no frustration redirected at a single person, no illusion that competence alone would have beaten congestion. There is only a clear understanding of what was known, what was tried, and what the constraints actually were.
I’ve spent years watching both versions play out. People who delegate a destination and evaluate from a distance, armed with outcomes but blind to context. And people who sit in the car, watch the clock, argue about routes, take responsibility for the wrong turns, and face the delays together. The difference isn’t always visible from outside. But the people in the car always know who was there.
People don’t need leaders who only point at the airport and wait for updates. They need leaders willing to sit in the taxi, share the uncertainty, and own the detours. When failure happens in the car, it becomes collective and therefore useful. When success happens, it’s understood rather than mythologized. I don’t remember exactly what Leandro was responding to when he told me this. It was many years ago, and the specific situation has dissolved. What stayed was the image.
And the question it leaves behind: am I in the taxi?