Booker T. Washington was a man with a vision. The 1863 Emancipation Proclamation had begun the political processes of freedom, but Washington recognized that more needed to be done. If African-Americans were truly to enjoy freedom in this country, they needed education.

Initiative is the conviction that to see a need is to be responsible for meeting that need. It is not enough to discern a family, company, or social need and assume that someone else will tend to it. Initiative is accepting the discovery of a need as being the call to do something about it.

Because Washington understood the need for active education, he modeled the Tuskegee Institute so that students could earn tuition by working on campus. Thus structured, students were actually practicing the skills they were learning.

Booker T. Washington was born and reared as a slave. He was still a youth when Lincoln introduced the Emancipation Proclamation, and young Washington dedicated himself to obtaining a good education. He wanted an education, not simply for his own sake, but to be equipped to carry out his dream.

”Though I was but little more than a youth during the period of Reconstruction,” Washington later wrote, “I had the feeling that mistakes were being made….” Among the mistakes Washington observed was the failure to develop the education of his people along with their political freedom, and he was concerned about more than just academics.

“In Washington,” he reflected on a trip to the nation’s capital, “I saw girls whose mothers were earning their living by laundrying.” Once schooling became available, these girls left their trade and began classes. But “when the public-school course was finally finished,” he observed, “[the girls] wanted more costly dresses, more costly hats and shoes…. On the other hand, their six or eight years of book education had weaned them away from the occupation of their mothers.” The girls had learned some math and grammar, but not a marketable trade.

Washington saw the need for a new model in education – an approach that provided academic, moral, and vocational training. He saw the need – and he dedicated himself to meeting it.

There were many other opportunities for his own advancement that Washington might have pursued. Numerous times, he was urged to carry his vision into politics. “But I refused,” Washington records. “It appeared to me to be reasonably certain that I could succeed in political life, but I had a feeling that it would be a rather selfish…success at the cost of failing to do my duty…for the masses.”

So Washington stuck to his vision. He taught initially for the Hampton Institute in Virginia. Then in 1881, he moved to Alabama to organize the famous Tuskegee Institute. There, Washington spent the rest of his years, providing the kind of education he saw was needed. Initiative is the conviction that to see a need is to receive a call. Rather than assuming that someone else will take care of it, take the initiative to do something about it.

INITIATIVE ON THE JOB

Macrophages and leukocytes circulate through your body as part of your immune system. These cells attack and destroy invading antigens on sight, thereby keeping you healthy. If these immunity agents did not act on sight, germs would quickly multiply and overwhelm your system with illness.

Just as it is incumbent upon these cells in your body, as members of your body, to address the antigens they confront, so it is your duty as a member of your family, your company, and your community, to respond to the needs that you observe. When you see a need that will affect your home or work community, it is your obligation to address that need for the sake of the “body” - either personally or by contacting the individual responsible.

When you see a need, rather than turning your back and expecting someone else to take care of it, take initiative to address it.

INITIATIVE WITH BALANCE

If you see a need, it might just be your responsibility to do something about it. That is the nature of initiative.

Holding such initiative in balance however, is the important character quality of obedience, “quickly and cheerfully carrying out the direction of those who are responsible for me.”

Your first responsibility is to carry out the assignments of those to whom you are accountable. Taking initiative on projects “C” and “D” to the neglect of assignments “A” and “B” is initiative out of balance.

Take initiative in areas where you see an opportunity only after you have been faithful to your areas of assigned responsibility.

INITIATIVE VS. IDLENESS

Recognizing and doing what needs to be done before I am asked to do it

The English word initiative first came into use around 1793. Initiate and initiation had been used since the 1600s. Each of these forms is derived from the Latin verb initiare, which means “to begin; to originate.” Over the centuries, although the word has moved through various languages and been adopted different forms, the meaning has not changed.

Initiative is the quality of beginning – of getting something going. It is the quality of origination.

ini·tia·tive n 1: the power or ability to begin or to follow through with a plan or task 2: a beginning or introductory step; an opening move 3: the lead

Initiative is a close cousin to obedience. Obedience, however, is doing what I am responsible to do after being told; initiative is anticipating what needs to be done and doing it before being told.

HEEDING THE VOICE OF CHARACTER

Rather than waiting for the voice of a human authority to direct your actions, initiative is heeding the quiet “voice” of character.

Seeing a scrap of paper on the floor, the silent voice of orderliness whispers, “Pick it up and throw it away.” Seeing that a friend is in need, the quiet voice of generosity says, “Do what you can to help.” Seeing that a project is going to require overtime, the voice of availability suggests, “Postpone your personal plans for this evening and see this task through to completion."

THE KEY TO INDEPENDENCE

Independence is not the absence of supervision. Independence is the transfer of responsibility from an external supervisor to an internal one. Whether speaking of teenagers at home or adults in the workplace, independence is earned when an individual shows herself to be self-supervising: She will complete what she is responsible to complete without the need for external supervision.

Initiative is the key to such a transfer of responsibility. When a person fulfills his duties without being told and heeds the silent voice of character when he sees needs, he demonstrates the power of independence.

INITIATIVE AT HOME

As a family, walk around the neighborhood where you live and  look for a need that you

THINK INITIATIVE 1. When did Booker T. Washington apply his initiative by agreeing to take on a cause? When did his initiative compel hem to turn down an opportunity? 2. How does the character quality of initiative relate to a person’s duty as a member of a group? “Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you may be hindered tomorrow.” - Benjamin Franklin

could meet. Perhaps a widow’s yard needs to be mowed. Maybe you will see neighbors with a new baby and decide to make them a meal. Find some need in the area that the whole family could work together to meet.

Explain to the ones you help that you are doing this as a family project in the process of learning to take initiative, “recognizing and doing what needs to be done before I am asked to do it."

Character definitions and information used by permission. Copyright Character Training Institute. www.characterfirst.com
 

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