If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs

Host: The factory floor was quiet for the first time in years. Rows of machines, still slick with grease and dust, stood like sleeping giants in the dim light. The air smelled faintly of metal, coffee, and the ghost of a long workday. Outside, the sun was bleeding its last gold over the city, cutting through the dirty windows like forgiveness through fatigue.

Jack stood at the far end of the room, shirt sleeves rolled, hands rough with work. Jeeny leaned against a rusted workbench, her hair falling loose, her eyes reflecting the orange glow. Between them, on the old corkboard, was a faded printout of a quote Jack had tacked there years ago — now yellowed and curled at the edges:

“If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it — young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous — is changed by it.” — John C. Maxwell

Jeeny: “You still keep this up. I’m surprised. You used to call this ‘sentimental nonsense.’”

Jack: “Still do. But it reminds me of the kind of manager the last guy pretended to be.”

Host: His voice carried that dry, gravelly tone that always seemed halfway between mockery and regret. The light caught the creases near his eyes, carved from years of work, worry, and words he never said out loud.

Jeeny: “You think encouragement is a pretense?”

Jack: “Most of the time, yes. Leaders talk about encouragement the way politicians talk about honesty — a nice decoration, but rarely practice. People don’t need soft words. They need competence.”

Jeeny: “Competence without encouragement is like a body without breath. It moves, but it doesn’t live.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice was quiet, but it carried like the hum of the old machines — steady, persistent, impossible to ignore.

Jack: “You can’t build a company — or a life — on patting backs. The world runs on pressure, not praise. Nobody grows without pain.”

Jeeny: “Pain shapes you, yes. But encouragement gives you direction. It’s not a pillow — it’s a compass.”

Jack: “Sounds poetic. But tell that to the kid who just got laid off last week. Words won’t pay his rent.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But they might stop him from giving up before the next chance comes. Don’t underestimate what a word can do.”

Host: A pause settled between them. Dust drifted in the air, catching in the thin beam of the dying sunlight. Jack ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly — the sound of a man tired of both people and himself.

Jack: “You know what I’ve learned, Jeeny? Encouragement is cheap when it comes from people who don’t have to risk anything. It’s easy to say ‘you’re doing great’ when you’re not the one drowning.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But drowning people don’t need rescuers with perfect plans — they just need someone to believe they can swim. Sometimes belief is the lifeline.”

Jack: “You think a few nice words can change someone’s reality?”

Jeeny: “I’ve seen it happen.”

Jack: “Where?”

Jeeny: “In classrooms, in homes, in places like this.”

Host: She walked slowly toward the corkboard, brushing the corner of the faded quote with her fingertips. Her eyes softened — not with nostalgia, but with a memory too old to let go.

Jeeny: “When I was sixteen, my father worked at a plant just like this. Hard man. Rarely spoke. One night, his supervisor told him he was the best mechanic they had — said the place would fall apart without him. It was one sentence. One. But my father came home standing taller than I’d ever seen. He started teaching me how to fix things after that. He believed he was worth something again. That’s what encouragement does — it reclaims the part of you the world forgets.”

Host: Jack listened, unmoving. The light from the high window caught the side of his face, outlining the stubbornness like a sculpture half-carved.

Jack: “And what happened to him?”

Jeeny: “He died working. But he died believing he mattered. I can live with that.”

Jack: “You’re telling me a sentence changed his life?”

Jeeny: “No, I’m telling you it reminded him he had one.”

Host: The wind outside stirred the broken blinds. A faint whistle passed through the cracks — a low, aching note like memory breathing.

Jack: “You always see the best in people, don’t you? I used to think that was naïve.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I think it’s exhausting.”

Jeeny: “It is. But it’s also necessary.”

Jack: “Why? Because people can’t motivate themselves anymore?”

Jeeny: “Because even the strongest forget why they started. Because every soul, no matter how hardened, needs to hear ‘you still matter.’ Even you.”

Host: Jack gave a dry laugh — the kind that hides discomfort behind irony. He walked toward the corkboard and tapped the paper.

Jack: “You know, I put this up the day I got promoted. Thought it would make me sound wise. I used to quote Maxwell in meetings — made the team think I cared. Truth is, I was scared. I thought leadership meant being the loudest voice in the room. I forgot that people don’t follow commands — they follow courage.”

Jeeny: “And courage grows in people who are believed in.”

Jack: “You sound like one of those motivational speakers.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because I’ve lived what they preach.”

Host: The factory lights flickered to life, humming back to strength. The room glowed pale gold. Dust sparkled like faint stars suspended in the air.

Jack: “You ever wonder why people stop trying? It’s not because they fail. It’s because they start to believe they can’t win. And sometimes, I think I made that happen to people here.”

Jeeny: “Then undo it. Start again. It’s not too late to remind them that they matter.”

Jack: “And if they don’t believe it?”

Jeeny: “Then keep saying it until they do. You’re the leader, Jack. Your words weigh more than you think.”

Host: Jack’s eyes lifted to the mezzanine, where rows of empty workstations waited for morning. The machines, the grease, the silence — all witnesses to a thousand unspoken frustrations. But beneath that silence, something stirred.

Jeeny: “You know who understood this better than anyone? Lincoln. During the Civil War, when he walked through hospitals, he didn’t talk strategy or politics. He just held soldiers’ hands. Told them he was proud of them. Imagine — the President of a broken nation telling a dying man he mattered. That’s not weakness. That’s leadership.”

Jack: “You always go for the emotional jugular, don’t you?”

Jeeny: “Only when I’m trying to wake someone who’s fallen asleep inside himself.”

Host: Jack smiled, faintly, reluctantly. The kind of smile that cracked the shell but didn’t quite break it.

Jack: “Maybe Maxwell was right. Maybe encouragement really does change people.”

Jeeny: “Not maybe, Jack. Always. The question is — will you be the one to give it, or wait for someone else to?”

Jack: “You make it sound easy.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. But neither is carrying the weight of silence.”

Host: The light faded as the last of the sunset slipped away, replaced by the steady hum of the fluorescent bulbs. Jack looked around — at the empty chairs, the forgotten mugs, the calendar still flipped to last month. For the first time in years, he didn’t just see a place of work. He saw a place full of lives.

Jack: “Maybe I’ve been leading wrong all along. Maybe people don’t need orders — they need oxygen.”

Jeeny: “Then breathe some into them.”

Jack: “What if I fail?”

Jeeny: “Then you fail trying to build someone, not break them. That’s a kind of success the world doesn’t measure, but Heaven does.”

Host: The wind outside softened, the night arriving in shades of blue. Jack took down the yellowed printout and held it in his hand for a long time, reading it as if for the first time.

Then he pinned it back to the board, but this time with a fresh nail — firm, centered, deliberate.

Jack: “Tomorrow morning, I’ll tell them we start differently. No more barking orders. Just… reminders. That they’re still part of something.”

Jeeny: “That’s all people ever need to hear.”

Host: Jeeny smiled — small, certain, and warm as sunrise. The factory lights reflected in her eyes like distant dawns returning home.

Outside, the last train rumbled past — its low thunder echoing through the walls like the heartbeat of the world waking again.

And for a moment, in that still, glowing room, something unseen shifted — not the machinery, not the air, but the space between two weary souls who finally remembered that leadership isn’t power.

It’s faith — spoken out loud.