Why Owning Your Story as a Leader Is Not Enough

Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura in the original Star Trek, passed away this week. If you know me, have worked with me as your coach, read my books, seen me keynote, or taken my workshops, you know that I am a huge Star Trek fan. The show — and her role, in particular — have had a huge impact on my life and career.

I want to share a story I heard this week. It’s a story about how Nichols became not just an actor, but a leader.

After the first season of Star Trek ended, Nichols was ready to quit. She had more important things to do. She was a stage actor and had just been offered the Broadway-bound role of her dreams.

“You can’t,” Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek’s creator, told her when she submitted her resignation. “You don’t see what I’m trying to achieve.” He asked her to think about it over the weekend.

That weekend, Nichols was presenting at an NAACP fundraiser. The organizer wanted to introduce her to one of her biggest fans.

That fan turned out to be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Star Trek — and Nichols specifically — was so important to the King family that it was the only TV show Dr. King and his wife, Coretta, let their kids stay up late to watch.

Nichols was surprised, proud, and honored. She thanked Dr. King.

Then she told him about her impending departure.

“You cannot.” Dr. King replied. “You don’t understand what you have achieved.”

Great leaders have a mission — but don’t always know it

It turns out that Nichols wasn’t receiving her fan mail and was working too much to watch Star Trek on TV.

She couldn’t see what she couldn’t see.

He was “my leader,” she recalled in a 2010 interview with Archive of American Television.

Not the other way around.

She really had no idea.

Until she did.

Each week, Nichols beamed into American homes demonstrating that a Black woman could and should participate in and was integral to a civil society of the future.

She embodied and lived her and Dr. King’s collective dream — Roddenberry’s dream, too. She was making (and would continue to make) a huge impact.

25 years later, Nichols beamed into my home and showed me that a woman could use computers, be totally badass while doing so, and boldly go…anywhere. This week, she continues to inspire me by reminding me of an important lesson.

I work with a lot of great leaders. I help them own their story — who you are, how you show up, and the impact you make in the world.

This isn’t just a story for telling. (If anything, if you want to be a great leader tell fewer stories!)

Your story is your architecture of being.

When you’re busy leading others, you can’t always see your full story — your full who, what, and why.

You see your version.

But your version is half the story.

Great leaders get out of their heads

To find your story, get out of the building. Get curious.

• What do you do that’s amazing?
• What impact do you have?
• What would be even more amazing?
• What impact can you have?
• Who will you support along your journey?
• Who will support you?

That’s your story.

And that story is you.

Great leaders are superheroes

Being a great leader is a lot like being a superhero.

You can embrace your story.

Or not.

Most superheroes don’t want to accept theirs at first.

Being a superhero is hard!

In Nichol’s own words:

“Every word he was saying was the truth. I didn’t want to know it because I was going to go through turmoil for the rest of the week. But I knew that I was something else. That the world was not the same.”

Spoken like a true superhero.

Be the change you want to see in the world

I’m glad that Nichols accepted her story that day.

RIP, Nichelle Nichols.

I am something else because of you.

And my world is not the same, either.