INITIATIVE AND LEADERSHIP 367It would be helpful here to point out the part that Imagination
played in this transaction. For ten years the townspeople of Lumber-
port had been trying to get a streetcar line built into town. It must
not be concluded that the town was without any citizens of ability,
because that would be inaccurate. In fact there were many able people
in the town, but they had been making the mistake, which is so com-
monly made by us all, of trying to solve their problem through one
single source, whereas there were actually three sources of solution available
to them.
One hundred thousand dollars was too much for one company to
assume for the construction of a bridge, but when that cost was distri-
buted among three interested parties, the amount to be borne by each
was more reasonable.
The question might be asked, why did some of the local towns-
people not think of this three-way solution?
In the first place, they were so close to their problem that they
failed to take a perspective bird's-eye view of it, which would have
suggested the solution. This is a common mistake, and one that is
always avoided by great leaders. In the second place, these towns-
people had never before coordinated their efforts or worked as an
organized group with the sole purpose in mind of finding a way to get
a streetcar line built into town. This is another common error made
by people in all walks of life-that of failure to work in unison, in a
thorough spirit of Cooperation.
I, being an outsider, had less difficulty in getting cooperative
action than one of their own group might have had. Too often there
is a spirit of selfishness in small communities which prompts each indi-
vidual to think that their ideas are the ones that should prevail. It is
an important part of the leader's responsibility to induce people to
subordinate their own ideas and interests for the good of the whole, and
this applies to matters of a civic, business, social, political, financial, or
industrial nature.