An excerpt from Chapter 20 of Change is Good…You Go First:
In the summer of 1941, Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing onto the wing of his Wellington bomber, 13,000 feet above the North Sea, to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he not only smothered the fire but shimmied along the wing back to the cabin.
Not long after, Winston Churchill, an admirer of courageous acts, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street.
Sergeant Ward was struck dumb in Churchill's presence and unable to answer the prime minister's questions. Churchill noted the hero's condition.
"You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," Churchill said.
"Yes, sir," managed Ward.
"Then you can imagine," replied Churchill, "how humble and awkward I feel in yours."
Great leaders know that positive change requires a secure measure of buy-in with followers, and the greater the change, the greater the buy-in must be.