A month ago, on the last night of an exchange program in China, our group left the hotel a little after eight in the evening. The transfer bus was set for 4:30 the next morning, seventy kilometers to the airport and flight at nine. We wandered around the proximity of the hotel and decided to rent electric scooters. We rented them, as we had earlier that week, and rode in a loose line through the streets. Behind me I heard a collision. I assumed it was minor until I turned back. Two of us were on the ground. One had a shallow scrape and the other's leg was torn open and bleeding, she was crying.
Nobody moved. What froze the group was not the wound but the departure; everyone understood at once that this could mean for the morning. A teammate had some first-aid training and went to her straight away. I called the local emergency number but could not make myself understood because of language barrier. I thought of two options, first one was to wake the chain of coordinators - our university, the hotel, the host administration, the insurer - and wait for it to move at its own speed. The other option was to get her off street and treated now. I chose to act. I ordered a taxi to the hotel, assigned roles - one person to buy antiseptic and bandages, one to keep her talking, one to manage the scooters. Eventually, at the hotel we cleaned and disinfected the wound until the bleeding stopped. The moment the group relaxed, I insisted we go further because the cut was too deep for a single bandage. We went to the local hospital, and the doctor confirmed it needed stitches before she could fly home. In the morning, we boarded her onto the bus, and later, on the flight, I persuaded the cabin crew to move her to a more spacious seat where she could keep her leg elevated. On landing, she went straight to a hospital with her parents.
For the first couple weeks, I had this story as proof that I can stay calm under pressure. That is true, while others froze, I broke the problem into steps and executed them. But the more I think about this, the harder lesson has surfaced. We never told the program staff about this case. At the time, I reasoned that involving those parties would add participants, not treatment. I now think I had it backwards. Those coordinators were there exactly for this situation - they carried the responsibility I was quietly assuming alone. My decisiveness got her treated within the hour; however, it also meant her parents learned of the injury only when she landed, and that a student with no medical training was the final person on whether she was fit to fly. I was lucky enough to be right. Leadership cannot depend on luck.
There is an even earlier failure I have to own. All of this began with our decision to ride scooters at night, just hours before our departure. The best version of leadership that night would be the person who says that this is not the right moment.
What I learned from that night is a two-speed model of leadership I expect to use for the future career. When minutes matter, rapid acting is important, sequencing the problem and eventually solving it. But the moment the danger passes, a leader's task is to escalate and share responsibility rather than hoard it.
I expect to spend my career among people who may not share my language, my training or my assumptions on how a problem should be handled. I will bring the calm I showed that night. I will also bring what that night taught me - the measure of a leader is not only about fast decisions, but whether they can tell the difference between the decisions that are theirs to make alone and the ones that are not. I believe that every problem is only a task we have not yet broken into steps.
Nobody moved. What froze the group was not the wound but the departure; everyone understood at once that this could mean for the morning. A teammate had some first-aid training and went to her straight away. I called the local emergency number but could not make myself understood because of language barrier. I thought of two options, first one was to wake the chain of coordinators - our university, the hotel, the host administration, the insurer - and wait for it to move at its own speed. The other option was to get her off street and treated now. I chose to act. I ordered a taxi to the hotel, assigned roles - one person to buy antiseptic and bandages, one to keep her talking, one to manage the scooters. Eventually, at the hotel we cleaned and disinfected the wound until the bleeding stopped. The moment the group relaxed, I insisted we go further because the cut was too deep for a single bandage. We went to the local hospital, and the doctor confirmed it needed stitches before she could fly home. In the morning, we boarded her onto the bus, and later, on the flight, I persuaded the cabin crew to move her to a more spacious seat where she could keep her leg elevated. On landing, she went straight to a hospital with her parents.
For the first couple weeks, I had this story as proof that I can stay calm under pressure. That is true, while others froze, I broke the problem into steps and executed them. But the more I think about this, the harder lesson has surfaced. We never told the program staff about this case. At the time, I reasoned that involving those parties would add participants, not treatment. I now think I had it backwards. Those coordinators were there exactly for this situation - they carried the responsibility I was quietly assuming alone. My decisiveness got her treated within the hour; however, it also meant her parents learned of the injury only when she landed, and that a student with no medical training was the final person on whether she was fit to fly. I was lucky enough to be right. Leadership cannot depend on luck.
There is an even earlier failure I have to own. All of this began with our decision to ride scooters at night, just hours before our departure. The best version of leadership that night would be the person who says that this is not the right moment.
What I learned from that night is a two-speed model of leadership I expect to use for the future career. When minutes matter, rapid acting is important, sequencing the problem and eventually solving it. But the moment the danger passes, a leader's task is to escalate and share responsibility rather than hoard it.
I expect to spend my career among people who may not share my language, my training or my assumptions on how a problem should be handled. I will bring the calm I showed that night. I will also bring what that night taught me - the measure of a leader is not only about fast decisions, but whether they can tell the difference between the decisions that are theirs to make alone and the ones that are not. I believe that every problem is only a task we have not yet broken into steps.
