while I was plating one of my family’s favorite dishes this past weekend, my beautiful daughter asked me, dad, why you always are the last person you serve and the last person who eats? This question allowed me to teach her what I consider the most important skill any athlete (any person in general) can learn. That’s leadership.
I explained to my daughter why it’s so important to serve. I told her that, if I was the first person eating the rest of them would have to wait for me to eat, or have to assemble the dish on their own. I also told her that, serving first is how we become leaders.
Oftentimes people relate leadership to a certain species of human being, with innate qualities and talents. Leadership also gets confused with a highly charismatic character with a superior persuasion level.
Luckily, evidence shows us that leadership has almost nothing to do with these assertions, and that is available to anyone who has the guts to be a leader.
Unfortunately, having the guts to be a leader is harder than it should. Not because it’s complicated, but because it takes among other non-sophisticated skills and attitudes hard work and humility.
Jesus said in Mateo 20:26-27: “But it will not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be your servant”.
You don’t become a leader through education, or acquiring complex-high IQ dependent skills. Leadership requires non-sophisticated skills and certain attitudes that just need from us to make a decision. We must decide to serve first.
John Wooden is the greatest college basketball coach. He is well known for his mindfulness that attracted some of the greatest leaders to sick his wisdom in his latest days.
In his book “Coach Wooden’s Pyramide Of Success”, among great coaching tips, he shared how he handled to coach some of the greatest athletes of his generation such as Kareen Abdul Jabbar and Bill Walton.
Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success has been adopted by numerous institutions and organizations as their leadership model. One of Coach Wooden’s lessons in this book is the importance of hard work and leading by example.
Coach Wooden also was a believer. In his book he flooded the pages with biblical verses to affirm his arguments.
Leadership is not a fancy endeavor. It means rolling the sleeves before anybody does to lead by example. Great leaders have the guts to speak and decide what is best for the cause they’re leading knowing that their decisions will hurt someone. That’s what Jesus did. Even He changed the lives of millions of people, He paid the ultimate price for it with His life.
If you want to be a leader, start by asking if you’re willing to walk the high and narrow rope of decision making knowing that you will be the first to be blamed for the failure of the team, institution, or organization you’re leading. Leaders also are – most of the time, the last to be rewarded for the success of the cause they’re leading.
If you want to be the leader to be the first to be acknowledged for the success of your team, institution, or organization you better want to reconsider it. It takes a lot of hard work, love, determination, patient, and resilience to be a leader.
