CHAPTER

 

Finding the Leader in You

Charles Schwab was paid a salary of a million dollars a year in the steel business, and he told me that he was paid this huge salary largely because of his ability to handle people. Imagine that! A million dollars a year because he was able to handle people! One day at noontime, Schwab was walking through one of his steel mills when he came across a group of men smoking directly under a sign that said No Smoking.

Do you suppose that Charles Schwab pointed at the sign and said, "Can't you read?"

Absolutely not, not that master of human relations.

Mr. Schwab chatted with the men in a friendly way and never said a word about the fact that they were smoking under a No Smoking sign.

Finally he handed them some cigars and said with a twinkle in his eye, "I'd appreciate it, boys, if you'd smoke these outside."

That is all he said. Those men knew that he knew that they had broken a rule, and they admired him because he hadn't called them down. He had been such a good sport with them that they in turn wanted to be good sports with him................

-DALE CARNEGIE