The bulb in the entrance

In a lot of buildings in Maadi the light in the entrance has been broken for months, and everyone has a view about whose job it is.

The owners' committee, where there is one, rarely meets. The doorman says he has asked. The family on the third floor thinks the landlord should pay. The residents' group chat holds a long argument about it every few weeks and then goes quiet again.

Then one evening someone comes down with a new bulb and a chair to stand on, and changes it. No vote, no collection, no message to the group first.

That is the difference between managing and leading. Managing needs a mandate. Someone has to hand you the right to decide, and until they do, you wait. Leading needs nothing at all. It is available to anyone in the building, at any hour, the moment they decide to begin.

It does not promise a following. Perhaps a neighbour mends the broken letterbox the week after. Perhaps nobody does, and the bulb is the only thing that changes all year. Either way, the person who started now knows something about how this building moves, and the next thing they start will go better for it.

Most of us are waiting for a permission that nobody is ever going to send, in the building and far beyond it. The bulb costs almost nothing. The part we keep putting off is going first.