Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hearing Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO of Teach for America, speak about her new book: A Change to Make History. Most people know the amazing story of Teach for America and the impact the organization has had on low-income communities.

However, what really resonated for me in her speech was the idea of Transformational Leadership. In a nutshell, Wendy explained that she was not that impressed with “good schools”, whose students were already on the trajectory of going to college. That isn’t transformational. What is highly impressive is schools in low-income communities or teachers in low-performing schools changing the trajectory of their students – putting them on the path to college despite the circumstances around them making that path very unlikely.

These same lessons of transformational leadership and changing the trajectory can be applied to our own work as well, or to a job search, or even personal relationships. Are we simply executing that which already is headed in a certain direction or are we truly adding value and transforming something  in a positive way?