Are you really the leader?
On Friday night, Jacob had a basketball game. We don’t always make the other kids watch him play basketball, but for this game we decided to take everyone. That included Brooke, my almost-four-year-old daughter.
For those of you who are experienced parents, you know it’s a little much to ask an almost-four-year-old to sit through an hour of anything including watching older brothers play basketball. Brooke is no exception. She’s a smart little girl. I love her. I mean that. But, just to be honest, sometimes her mother’s feisty personality comes through in most inopportune times.
We were about midway through the game when Brooke decided to begin pestering her older sister. Abby, our eight-year-old was sitting to my right. We had Brooke strategically positioned to my left between my feisty wife and me. Brooke, though, was done with basketball. She crawled under my legs and began teasing Abby. She made faces. She poked. She gave Abby the raspberries. Basically she was trying to annoy Abby in any way possible to divert Abby’s attention from the game to her.
Abby has great patience, but she’s also very human and will sometimes react the way “more mature” people react. She let Brooke do her thing for a few minutes, and then she basically kneed Brooke in the chest. I guess as the father I was supposed to reprimand Abby for that reaction, but my initial thought was, “You should have hit her a little harder.”
This, of course, wasn’t the response Brooke was expecting. Immediately she started yelling at her sister and letting the whole gymnasium including the fans from both basketball teams know that she had been wronged. This was one of those moments when I wish all it took was a black-and-white-striped shirt and a whistle to call a foul and turn the ball over to the other team. Unfortunately, they don’t give those shirts out to fathers.
Because I thought I would have reacted the same way Abby did, I didn’t punish Abby. Instead, I decided to remove her pest-of-a-little-sister from her personal space. I picked up the little agitating twirp and positioned her back between my wife and me. I can still do that because Brooke is almost-four-years-old and about as light as the basketball the boys were tossing around the court.
At that point, Brooke folded her arms across her chest. She looked me square in the eyes. And, in the sternest voice a little girl could muster, she expressed: “You’re not in charge of me.”
What do you do in a situation like that? I don’t know if this was the appropriate reaction, but I promptly snickered and then reminded my wife that Brooke was her daughter.
Let me just clarify for you that I am, indeed, Brooke’s father. I’m the leader…at least on paper. Just because I have positional leadership in our family, though, doesn’t necessarily mean I’m always the leader in my kids’ eyes.
The same thing is happening on a different scale in organizations everywhere. People are in positional leadership roles who aren’t necessarily the leaders of their organizations. The days are behind us for those situations when someone gets out of line and the head-honcho just takes their subordinate out to the woodshed for a reminder of who’s the boss. Leadership is no longer a title on a business card. (Do people still carry those things?)
Leadership looks a lot different these days.
- It doesn’t necessarily reside in the corner office.
- It’s something that’s earned rather than bestowed.
- It rarely tells people what to do, but rather asks how can I serve?
- It can’t be bought, because most people ultimately care very little about the money.
- It’s focused more on the mission than the tasks.
- It’s concerned more about fostering influence instead of wielding power.
- It recognizes the next new idea will come from someone else.
- It doesn’t necessarily require words.
I’m hopeful that one of these days Brooke will acknowledge and respect my leadership in her life. Needless to say, we both probably have some maturing to do before that comes to fruition. Until then, I may need to remind her from time to time who’s in charge. As long as she’s a little girl, I think that strategy is going to work. When she becomes a teenager, probably not so much.
While I perfect my parenting skills, this humorous episode from my role as “father knows best” begs this more important question:
Are you really the leader?
Tony, that post just made me feel better about some of the responses we get from our almost 4-year old :) I appreciate your insight and transparency!
love your thoughts T-Mo… and i love the fact that your kids are leaders… they are independent…. not sure about everyone else, but i’d always prefer a young person to be a little too head-strong verses the alternative…. Reigning in passion brings me much more joy than trying to fabricate it… or snap a whip to manifest it in a young person….
brad, i agree. i prefer the same thing with people i hire. reigning in passion is always better.
just read that part in Cockroaches last night, loved it… out of all the points you made, being a leader is less about you (the said leader) and more about everyone else. Which can come down to “I must degrease and He must increase”.
Being a parent is one of the most challenging things. I miss the 3 yr old stage. My 4 year old is not only passionate, but really smart, so my wife and I really have to be on our toes. For us, I think that two great components for leading our kids are communication + consistency. I think that these traits if anything are great steps to practice not only with our 4 yr olds but the companies we work with as well.
Tony, what a great post. I think most parents can relate to the event within the basketball event. I am writing and developing a workshop about Servant Leadership and many of the points you have made are in that workshop already. A couple of points I’d like to add are that servant leaders have an attitude of humility (which is so tough for those of us who are prideful) and are the first to admit to mistakes, misjudgments and poor decisions they make as leaders. These are certainly applicable to us as parents (leaders of our families) and organizational leaders.
leadership, to me, is serving people into compliance with their welfare or sometimes in calling foul. Today I didn’t pull that off. I became frustrated with the wife God has entrusted to me to serve her growth and welfare; I spoke out of my frustration and provided a negative example for everyone in our home.
So now leadership becomes delving into the idols of my soul to discover what I wanted more than serving. I wanted control, and when I didn’t get the control I wanted I lost my emotional capacity to serve.
Oh Father, please form in me a faith that can see the goal is to serve and die to circumstances.
I’ve gotten the “you’re not in charge of me” before. One time I agreed to no longer being the “boss” of my children and they we’re quite upset…that conversation rarely happens now.
Children really want you to be in charge, they just like to push limits :)
Thanks for the post Tony
You should send this to our world leaders so may be they will take the hint. I worked for a company for most of my audlt life and their problems then and now is that the Leaders do not do their Job because they have friends and buddies that would have to be punished if they did their job. If you want to be a leader you can’t treat your friends different than you do anyone else whither it be a worker or volunteer, because when you start to slit hairs that is when the respect goes down the tube.
Good Luck with your daughter and she will come around soon.I Love this Church.
I love this post. You go girl. Brooke reminds me of myself as a little girl. As you know God can and will use that spunk as he molds and shapes her. Today I prayed that the Lord would use her in a mighty way for his kingdom glory.
Tony, I really appreciated your honesty in how you responded to both of your daughters. Know that if you establish your leadership clearly while they are small, the teenage years are much easier to handle. That calls for equal measures of love and justice. A scale tipped in either direction will produce rebellion. What is true for children is also true for employees.
This was awesome. In a group of guys I sit with on Wed nights we were just discussing the difference between submission, authority and spiritual authority. This was very timely. Thank you Tony.
Brett
Nailed
MAYBE YOU SHOULD COME WORK WITH ME ONE DAY I AM THE MANAGER AT A WARE HOUSE FOR M.U.S.T MINISTRIES AND A PASTOR I HAVE TO TELL FOLKS FROM 18 TO 70 THAT I AM THE LEADER AND THEY GOT TO DO THE WORK IT IS A CONCEPT THAT IS LEARNED AND WE GOOD LORD WILLING LEARN IT FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT . THANK YOU I LOVE YOU AND HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT MINISTRY . AND DO NOT FORGET I AM THE LEADER = HA , HA .