I’ve written before how much a role serendipity has played in my life (Accidental Teacher, Accidental Coach, Accidental Counselor). My life has not been planned, at least not in the big picture. In fact, I’m still not sure what that picture will look like when it’s finished.
Oh, sure, once I (accidentally) became a teacher or a coach (softball, journalism, drama, etc.) or counselor, I tried to control as much as I could, perhaps often to the point of even over-planning (as I’ve also noted previously, I will never get a Staples or Nice ‘n Easy commercial because I tend to overcomplicate things). My father’s son, long-range planning, within those specific corridors, is in my blood.
I also became an accidental leader. Accidental in that I am not a particularly ambitious person, unwilling to pay the price exacted by ambition. My first brush with leadership came at the end of my first year of teaching when I was asked to get involved in Hancock’s nascent teacher union, locked in conflict with an intransigent school board and the incompetent superintendent who was their puppet. I declined. “I’m not interested in that stuff,” I said. Within two years I became the president-elect and (he says, immodestly) and (essentially) the “union boss” for about the next two decades, with power roles locally and regionally, along with two terms (n.b., term limits) on the state board of directors.
So, add leadership to the accidents that shaped me. I eventually recognized that I tended to be a power magnet, accumulating it effortlessly and certainly without any real desire for personal gain. I never really analyzed the why or the how of leadership, I just accepted that leadership was a key piece of my identity and it was easier to just go with the flow than deal with the frustration of resistance. Yes, I suppose that probably sounds, and may be, kind of arrogant and/or egotistical, but my ongoing road to authenticity requires that kind of self-examination.
Interestingly, if you’re still reading, the intersection (collision?) of all four of those accidents has led to what I hope will become a new regular feature on my Facebook feed (joining Wednesday Wisdom & Good News Friday), starting next week, the first Monday of the new year (Happy New Year, btw), the Monday Leadership Memo, because I’m still teaching, or at least trying to, for those who care to keep an open mind and listen (never close to 100%, even in my prime). The four accidental components of teaching, counseling, coaching and leading, mindfully combined.
“Why?” you may ask (or not, but I’m going to tell you, just like any number of classroom lessons). At the end of this season, my assistant coach and I received a thank you gift from one of our players — the book Legacy, about the All Blacks, the NZ rugby team, and how that team’s leadership values have allowed it to achieve a status that far surpasses what a team from a small nation should be able to achieve, year after year, and how that leadership culture can be applied in so many ways to life as we know it. (Her father is a well-known coach, at least in area soccer circles.)
I started reading, part of the ritual as I prepared for the fitful sleep that defines my nights now (#joysofaging) and at a chapter per evening, finished it fairly quickly. I was immediately struck by the leadership lessons that seem so obvious but which I had never really analyzed (even if I, again immodestly, unconsciously incorporated many of them into my developing character).
As our nation approaches what may be one of its most historically important elections, a potential turning point to which chapters and undoubtedly books will be devoted, each week (or so) in the months leading up to that pivotal day, I will attempt to get my friends and formers to think (and that was always my only goal) on the fundamental question, “What characterizes true leadership?” While this isn’t a multiple choice question, and, being a “Shades of Grey” kind of guy (Billy Joel, not E. L. James), I’m pretty sure that there are multiple answers, all colored by the lenses through which we variously view life.
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