Looking for Leaders

Our world needs leaders. We won’t get them in the White House, 10 Downing Street, or other palaces and places of power. Those residents care about themselves too much—though one does wonder why Boris Johnson never combed his hair. And, actually, those are the wrong places for leadership. Leaders who are far away from the trenches of life are not all that helpful in the day to day. Usually, their actions are heard about after-the-fact and not seen in the making.

The first leader a child knows is their parent, usually their mother. Some mothers lead by putting their infant in a baby box at the local fire station. It cannot be easy to show that level of love. But from that moment on, that child’s life gets better. From the firefighters, most of whom are parents themselves, to adoptive parents who have long waited for the opportunity to hold and care for a child, that first parental decision puts a child in a position of love and care. Sometimes leadership is knowing what you’re not equipped to do, and stepping aside.

Another form of leadership is the child who leads a group classroom project. One wonders about teachers who assign group projects. Were they never in school? Do they not know that unless the teacher leads by assigning the parts of the whole, the project will fall to the best student in the group? It is a lazy student’s chance to bring up their grade by being themselves and doing nothing while the diligent group leader performs. Every good student has been tapped at least once to bring up the grades of jokers who then bad-mouthed them. Kudos to every child who has ever led an assigned group—it was not only leadership but good training for life.

Some leadership is shown by restraint. Standing and watching someone learn to do something by himself or herself is leadership. If you could do it in a minute and you watch and wait, you have led. Teachers live their lives waiting and watching. Parents who lead do the same. When my disabled granddaughter was not yet four, she fell while walking with a pair of forearm crutches. A doctor and nurse went, “Ooh!” and started to help, but her mother stood and waited. The doctor and nurse followed the mother’s lead. The child put her crutches up and got back on her feet, unassisted. The doctor asked my daughter how she had showed such restraint. She replied, “Children fall down; children get up.” Leaders do not rush in when restraint is called for.

When I was a child people would marvel that the armed forces could take someone who seemingly had no direction in life and change them into someone with strength and a sense of honor. I do not find that odd. Many children grow up without leadership. No one knows where they are or what they are doing. No one gives them an example to follow. They could, for all intents and purposes, be invisible. Then, they meet a sergeant. He cares how the corners of their bedsheets are folded. He cares if a button is only half buttoned. He wants them up when he says to get up and doing what he says needs to be done. And he will stand over them until it is accomplished. If they cannot hear him, the sergeant will scream until they do. Suddenly the child no one saw is the child who must be seen. The sergeant believes they can polish their buttons, he believes they can shine their shoes; he believes they can conquer a cope course and handle explosives and succeed at any challenge set before them.  And when they learn the sergeant is right, they become leaders, too.

It is good to look at leaders. To study how they do the right thing, regardless of the cost to themselves. It is good to see their overt actions and their studied restraint. The greatest leader went to death on a cross. Read his story. He led every action that happened on the day of his death. Second by second, people said and did what he knew they would. He riled the leaders of his own religion and left so they would meet and decide to kill him. He told his betrayer to go quickly and do his betrayal. He showed up where the betrayer thought he would be and told the soldiers, “I am he,” when they asked for him. His most forward follower said the words of denial he had told him he would say. Minute by minute, step by step, he let others play out the script he directed. He told Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above.” Pilate continued on the path he was scripted to play. He let the crowd that had adored him convict him without saying a word. And when he had done all he meant to do, he gave up his spirit. Everyone who had a part that awful night thought they acted on their own, when in fact, he was the only one with power.

Leadership may be the biggest paradox.  You can have it and be seen by all or wield it and know that no one saw.  If you have led, especially without anyone knowing, thank you.  If you have had a leader who helped you on your way, thank them.  Because sung or unsung, even small acts of leadership help us on our way.