Measure Success by the Hands You Lift
Measure success by how many hands you lift, not by how many you step over. — Frederick Douglass
A Different Yardstick for Achievement
Often attributed to Frederick Douglass, this maxim overturns the conventional scorecard of wins, titles, and dominance. Instead, it asks us to treat uplift—how many people rise because we acted—as the true denominator of success. In an age of winner-take-all metrics, the aphorism resets the ruler: progress is collaborative, and stepping over others is not advancement but drift from purpose. Thus, what counts is not the height of our pedestal but the number of hands we help steady.
Douglass’s Life as Proof of Principle
Fittingly, Douglass’s own story embodies uplift. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), he recounts organizing a clandestine Sabbath school to teach fellow enslaved people to read—an early act of multiplying freedom through skills. During the Civil War, his broadside “Men of Color, To Arms!” (1863) urged Black enlistment; his sons joined the 54th Massachusetts, turning courage into communal leverage. From the lecture circuit to public service, Douglass treated personal emancipation as seed capital for others’ emancipation, showing how influence is richest when redistributed.
From Servant Leadership to Stakeholder Value
Carrying this ethic into institutions, Robert K. Greenleaf’s “The Servant as Leader” (1970) proposes a decisive test: do those served grow—become freer, more autonomous, and more likely themselves to serve? Modern corporate purpose echoes this. The Business Roundtable’s 2019 Statement reframed success as value created for employees, customers, suppliers, and communities, not just shareholders. In both frames, the leader’s ascent is validated by the lift experienced downstream. Consequently, organizational greatness becomes a cascade of growth, not a solitary summit.
Evidence from Psychology and Well‑Being
Moreover, empirical research suggests that lifting others lifts us. In Science (2008), Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin, and Michael Norton showed that spending on others increases happiness more than spending on oneself. Allan Luks and Peggy Payne’s The Healing Power of Doing Good (2001) described the ‘helper’s high,’ a measurable boost in mood and vigor from prosocial acts. Complementing this, the Harvard Study of Adult Development—summarized by George Vaillant in Triumphs of Experience (2012)—finds that relationships are the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. Thus, generosity is not merely noble; it is efficacious.
Community Strategies That Multiply Lift
At the societal level, policies that raise many hands generate compounding returns. Muhammad Yunus’s microfinance work with Grameen Bank—described in Banker to the Poor (1999) and honored with the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize—demonstrates how tiny loans can unlock entrepreneurship, especially for women. Likewise, conditional cash transfers like Brazil’s Bolsa Família reduce present and future poverty by tying support to schooling and health (Fiszbein & Schady, World Bank, 2009). In both cases, assistance is engineered to amplify agency, turning help into momentum.
Measuring What Matters—and Avoiding Paternalism
Even so, ideals need instruments. Rather than tallying outputs alone, track outcomes that signal real lift: wages gained, skills certified, promotions earned, attrition reduced, and networks broadened. Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom (1999) offers a compass—expand people’s capabilities to choose and to be. Crucially, helping must not become stepping-over in disguise; imposing dependency or claiming credit can shrink the very agency we intend to grow. The right metric, then, honors autonomy as well as assistance.
Turning Principle into Daily Practice
Finally, the aphorism becomes habit through design. Build uplift into routines: schedule regular mentoring, share playbooks openly, circulate credit first, and make introductions that outlive you. Tie incentives to team advancement—bonuses for apprentices promoted, not just projects closed. And because culture is cumulative, narrate these acts the way Douglass narrated freedom—so that today’s lifted hand becomes tomorrow’s lifter. In this way, success ceases to be a ladder climbed and becomes a bridge carried together.