Who Cut the Onions

I am writing this from 30,000 feet while the moment is still fresh in my mind.

Tomorrow morning, I have a keynote in California. My travel day requires a 4-hour flight departing at 6 p.m.

Around 2:00 p.m., my phone started dinging with text messages from Southwest.

Flight delayed one hour. Flight on time. Flight delayed 45 minutes. Flight on time.

The text messages continued for the next couple of hours. Delayed. On time. Delayed. On time.

To be on the safe side, I decided to head to the airport at my original departure time. That turned out to be a good decision since our flight was back on time.

Until it wasn't.

By the time I arrived at the gate, it was packed. Every seat was taken. People sat on the floor against the walls while others stood leaning against pillars, scrolling on their phones. Every few minutes, we’d get a new “ding”: Delayed. On time. Delayed. On time.

You could feel the collective frustration building. Then it happened.

When we finally lined up to board, a mom and her son walked toward the counter. He was probably ten or eleven years old. He had a fresh haircut, a cute smile, and he carried himself well. Around his neck was a lanyard identifying him as an unaccompanied minor.

When the gate agent saw the lanyard, she immediately waved them to the front.

The gate agent was probably in her early 30s, and from all the departure-time announcements, we knew she had a thick Southern accent. She started talking with the mom and son. Then she stopped mid-sentence.

"Ohhhhh Momma..." The entire gate area got quiet. "No, no, no, Momma. Don't you do it.” She paused. "Who opened the onions in here? Now I'm crying too, and Momma, we are NOT doing this today."

At that moment, all 200 of us realized what was happening. Mom was not going to be traveling with her son, and she was in tears.

The gate agent looked at the son and said, "Oh no! Do you have allergies?! Who cut the onions?!" He was smiling and crying, and then she pulled them both into a group hug.

After a few more tears and a little more conversation, the gate agent looked at the boy and said, "I think you need to give your Momma one more hug."

A few moments later, the gate agent escorted him down the jet bridge while his mom stood alone at the gate wiping tears from her eyes. That's when the best of humanity took center stage.

A passenger walked over and handed the mom a handful of tissues. "Awwww." The entire gate area responded in unison.

Then a man standing near me yelled, "Where's he sittin? I bet we have a hundred mommas, daddies, and grandparents on this flight. We'll take care of him for you, Momma."

The woman exhaled and then said, "That means a lot. I've never been away from him for more than two days. He's going to his dad's house in California for two months." Another collective "Awwww."

A few moments later, a woman approached the mom and asked what her son’s favorite candy was. When she got her answer, she quickly headed across the terminal. A few minutes later, she returned with his candy to give him on the flight.

For about twenty minutes, I witnessed the very best of humanity. What struck me most was that none of these people knew each other. The gate agent didn't know the family. The man who promised to watch over the boy didn't know the family. The woman who bought the candy had never met them. Yet everyone seemed to understand the assignment.

I talk a lot about human-centered leadership. Sometimes people hear that phrase and assume it means being soft. It doesn't. Human-centered leadership simply means putting people at the heart of every decision we make.

In this example, the gate agent still had a job to do. The flight was still delayed. The boarding process still had to happen. The policies for unaccompanied minors still needed to be followed. None of that changed.

What changed was how the gate agent showed up while doing her job. She had empathy for the people in front of her. She made room for their emotion. She did her job while keeping people–strangers–at the center of her work. And in doing so, she gave the rest of us permission to do the same. I think the art of permission-giving is one of the most overlooked aspects of leadership.

People follow the behavior that leaders model. When leaders lead with impatience, others become impatient. When leaders lead with cynicism, others become cynical in turn. When leaders lead with fear, others become fearful.

But when leaders lead with humanity, something remarkable happens. Humanity becomes contagious. One person notices. Then another. Then another. And before long, an entire group of strangers begins acting like a community.

Leadership is less about power and more about permission. Today, a gate agent gave 200 strangers permission to be human. And for the next twenty minutes, we were. She set the tone and the rest of us followed.

Somewhere in the middle of a delayed flight, a crying mom, a nervous son, a handful of tissues, and a bag of candy, a group of strangers became a community.

And if that can happen in a crowded airport terminal, perhaps there is hope for the rest of us too.