Being A True Servant Leader
Servant leadership is a term that’s quite popular in management circles. It attempts to form leaders who care less about the power and more about using the influence to lift up their team members. Servant leadership turns the traditional model of leadership on its head by using its forces for good, instead of allowing itself to become open to corruption. While it may be atypical to find servant leaders in the workforce, once place that makes it easy to find these great leaders is in the home.
Reflecting more deeply on the life of a parent, I’m reminded of the great model of servant leadership that parenthood offers us. Extreme levels of sacrifice, a significant downgrade of personal priorities, and total commitment to the cause are all attributes of great leaders, but they’re also reflective of great parents. Parents forget about their wants and needs in order to care for their children. Parents are true servant leaders.
Too often we build walls between our work and our home life. Rightly so, these barriers are constructed to protect our family from the work creep that comes into family time via our phones and computers. I recently challenged you to not divorce your faith and work life and today I want to take that challenge one step further. None of us are perfect parents, but the lessons we learn in parenting can be applied in other areas of our lives to the benefit of all.
Take, for example, if you applied the same levels of sacrifice you make for your kids in your marriage. What if you answered every one of your wife’s requests, stopped what you were doing to listen to her, and do whatever she wanted? What if she did the same?
What if you took the lessons of parenthood and applied them at work? What if your set aside your own objectives and desires for the sake of the team, if you went out of your way to coach a colleague, and only offered constructive criticism?
Parenting is the ultimate vehicle for adult growth because it calls us back to our core values. Parenting demands respect, gentleness, and humanity. Parenting requires all of those great values that we wish we had in a leader. If we were to take its lessons and apply them in other areas of our lives, I bet people would start to take notice and maybe, just maybe, the benefits of being noticed might take you to a place that you want to be.
Painful Reminders
We’re all a bit detached from reality. We see ourselves in a certain light that tends to be a bit brighter than it actually is. At the very least, we have an ideal that we’re trying to reach. Daily we’re confronted with reality when we consider our mistakes, failings, and past errors that painfully remind us just how far we have to go.
To err is human, but so is to dwell. We like wallowing in self-pity and will indulge ourselves any chance that we get. We tell ourselves that we are the way we are because of circumstances beyond our control conspiring against us. The truth is that the only thing holding you back from being a better you is, well, you.
I like to be comfortable and so I’ll instinctively pivot away from pain at any chance that I get. This is a natural occurrence, but one that we should really focus on overcoming. Comfortable is safe, and safe is dangerous. Like the frog swimming happily in the warming waters, we can be unaware that comfort is slowly killing us.
Instead of internalizing these painful reminders, what if we laid them down and used them as stepping stones. A broken road that ultimately reaches our destination is just as useful in the final analysis as a perfect road that takes us to the same place. We carry too many burdens that rob us of the joys that we could be experiencing today and our family of the man that they deserve.
Pain is our body’s alarm system attempting to modify our actions. When you encounter painful reminders of a dark past, learn the lesson, lay it down, and walk on. In this way you’ll live a happier today and not have to go through the same challenges tomorrow.
Family Time Activities
I love Spring. Nature reminds us of the joy and hope of new life and new growth and the season also signals the beginning of the outdoor season. Every member of the family values, to admittedly varying degrees, time spent together as a family. As humans, we crave connection, and family time gives us that in a very safe and stable way. Just as it’s important to provide a young child with a variety of activities, your family time shouldn’t be spent solely in your living room. Spring and Summer present a wide variety of outdoor fun that can bring joy to all members of your family.
With a range of scheduling conflicts and a to do list that grows each day, I understand the challenges of meaningful family time. It’s easy to just watch a movie together when you’re exhausted from a long week of work and are burdened by all of the things you still have to get done. While watching movies together certainly counts as quality family time, you and your family need more.
Planning family time activities doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to be a burden. Taking time to write out a menu of options on Sunday afternoon and then having your family pick one whenever you have family time is a great way to manage the process and prevent defaulting to television. There are plenty of hidden options right in your community. Recently Alison and I were driving back from the outlet malls on back roads and discovered a small local zoo off the beaten path just 20 minutes from our house. That would be a perfect activity for us!
Spontaneity is a significant component in family activities. While some together time is planned, other time will just show up. It may be a night where no one has anything scheduled or a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Be ready to take advantage of good weather when it comes through your area.
Family time activities should be varied to prevent boredom, and they should touch on everyone’s interest at one time or another. By doing some advance work and preparing a menu of options, you can be ready to pique everyone’s interested and create family memories to last a lifetime.
Be You
We all wear masks. We instinctively alter our behavior when we believe we’re being watched in order to match what we believe other people want. This phenomenon is seen most clearly in children who are always seeking to please their parents. The problem with this behavior modification is that it can stifle out what we truly want to express for the sake of being more socially palatable or to gain a sense of acceptance.
How many times have you wanted to voice support for someone who was being ganged up on in a meeting, but you remained silent? How many times have you wanted to express your emotions transparently with your teenage children, but refrained from doing so because you didn’t want it to feel awkward? When you were growing up, do you remember when you wanted to stop being affectionate with your parents in public? As a Dad, I now realize how difficult that must have been for my parents and I dread the day my children take that natural approach with me.
In the long term, systemically suppressing our true emotions and feelings can lead to permanent behavior modifications. Ceasing to be affectionate with your children in the short term can lead to a lifelong change in relational boundaries. Not standing up for someone being gossiped about can lead to you joining in. Not being transparent with your wife can lead to a long term freeze in marital growth.
We have to move past this idea that our emotions are bad and that we should adjust them in order to make ourselves more palatable to others. The fact is, while we may think that others will like us more, the opposite is true. Look at our political system. There’s so much phoniness that when someone comes along and is open, transparent, and truly themselves, it’s like a breath of fresh air. We respect people who admit when they’re wrong, who share how they really feel, and act as the person who they are, not the person that they think that we want.
You are a unique person with something great to offer the world, but if instead you assimilate and are just like everyone else, we lose out on that chance to know you. Be the person you are and share that gift of self with the world. If you remain true to who you are, and I do the same, we can make a real dent in the world.
How Am I Doing As A Parent?
I enjoy systems and stability. I like to learn how to do something, experiment to find the most efficient process, and then implement that process repeatedly to complete a task. I have 90 minutes to work in the morning before Benedict gets up. On weekdays, I spend that time working on web design for clients, on Saturday mornings I write, and on Sunday mornings, I play. I’ve tried many variations of my schedule, but that one works, so I stick to it. There’s little need to review or make course corrections in how I lay out my week because the work is already done. It’s set, I move on. There is, however, one area of my life where this type of process doesn’t work: parenting.
I’ve written about how parenting requires daily adjustment and how the nature of parenting is change. Each day brings a new skill, new successes, and new failures. All of this change and progress means that each morning, we start over. Our children wake up different people and we need to adapt. This rapid change in events and circumstances necessitates that in order to be a good parent, you must be a reflective parent.
Much of my writing on reflection has been focused on self-reflection. I want to explore adapting those same principles to evaluate how I’m doing as a parent. Evaluating yourself as a parent has an added component in that your children are able to give you feedback.
The evaluation should start with your parental goals. What is it that you’re trying to accomplish? The answer should include educational milestones, exploration, freedom, play, faith, and family growth. That means you’re teaching your child daily, exposing your child to new things, giving them the latitude to fail and get hurt, ensuring that they spend ample time having fun, have daily time for prayer, and are exposed to positive family interactions. These elements make up our daily baseline.
When you consider all that you need to do for your children on a daily basis, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. In fact, the time required to both care for them and manage work and domestic tasks usually add up to more hours than you have in a day. Here’s an excellent challenge: incorporate your children into your daily to-do list. This was a big transition for me to make, and one that I’m still working on now that Benedict is awake most of the day, mobile, and capable of helping. I don’t have to just use nap times to get things done. He’ll be perfectly happy playing in the bedroom while I fold laundry, or reading a book nearby while I clean the bathroom. He also goes with me on all of my errands, which can really break up the day.
The second source of feedback comes from your child’s behavior. Generally, behavior that we think of as “bad” is a result of boredom, hunger, or lack of sleep. It’s unfair for you to demand that you keep your child satisfied 100% of the time, but certainly they should not be bored all that often. Varied play, differing activities, and changing the scenery is usually enough to prevent most boredom in younger children. At the end of the day, all you can do is provide opportunity.
The last part of this parental self-evaluation needs to come from reality. While your child depends solely on you, it’s important to cut yourself some slack. When you’re sick, it’s okay to be less involved so that you heal sooner. It’s ok if there are phases when they refuse to eat good things. It’s ok if you’ve provided ample opportunity for play and they’re still fussy. There is no perfect parent, and your best efforts will suffice.
Completing this parental self-evaluation on a regular basis can give you the confidence and peace of mind that you need in order to continue to be a great parent. By incorporating your children into your to-do list, reading feedback from your child’s behavior, and respecting reality, you can be the kind of parent that your children deserve.
Divorcing Faith and Work
Over the past several decades, the pressure to divorce one’s faith from one’s work has become increasingly strong. We’ve done it for a very long time in our political life, even as far back as the candidacy of John F. Kennedy who gave a landmark speech in which he aimed to assuage the American voter that as president, he wouldn’t be beholden to the papacy. The pseudo-logic, when taken at face value, presents itself as common sense. If my faith interferes with your life, then as a holder of public office, I shouldn’t use my faith so as to allow you to have absolute freedom. The problem with this line of thinking is that by leaving behind the tenants of one’s faith in the workplace, we all lose out on the very tangible goods that accompany faith.
Atticus Finch crystallized the idea of living an integrated life in To Kill A Mockingbird, a point which I’ve raised many times on this blog. We cannot be one person at home and one person in the public life. Not only is it difficult to maintain two realities, no one can be successful in doing so. Faith brings a dynamic set of positive qualities with it. Faith does not merely suggest that we be respectful and honest with others, it demands it. Do we not wish for all people to be treated with respect? So if we require that in order to hold public office or to work in a neutral setting that people leave their faith at the door, do we also wish them to be disrespectful and dishonest.
The real problem is a misunderstanding of the proper role of faith and spirituality in our lives. The entire premise of creation is hinged on free will. Blind faith is no faith at all. In order to truly live as God desires, we must do the right things while fully understanding and freely choosing to do them. This crux is what makes faith such a powerful force for good. We give of our time, material possessions, and support not for the praise, glory, or some desire for self-actualization, but because we understand what the good is and choose it over the evil of pride and selfishness.
I can think of no clearer example of this necessity to understand the good in order to do good than Alison’s profession of medicine. Alison objects to prescribing contraceptives on religious grounds. Her faith has informed her belief that contraceptives are not only contrary to natural order, but that they commoditize one’s sexuality. She has learned from the Church what it means to be truly human and truly alive, and she knows that the gift of human sexuality and the cooperative nature of creation demand both self-mastery and self-respect. Through this lens, she can see that the promises that contraceptives make are not only untrue, but they’re incredibly destructive. These are her personal beliefs and its from this starting point that she begins her decision making process. Does it matter to her patients that she starts her thought process with faith? No. Do most of her patients share her beliefs? Doubtful. It’s what Alison does next that lends credence to her conclusion to not prescribe contraceptives. Taking her suspicions that contraceptives may not be in the best interest of her patients, she learns of the increased suicide rates among sexually active young women, she learns of the serious potential side effects, and the serious challenges with infertility that rise out of sustained use of contraceptives. These findings are not in any way connected to her faith; they’re medical and scientific facts. Weighing them against the proposed benefits of contraceptives, it becomes her medical opinion that the risks do not outweigh the benefits and that the treatment is medically unnecessary. That decision is not only based on the medical facts, but on the cost to the patient in terms of monetary expenditure on the treatment, future costs of correcting damage done by the procedure, and the crippling emotional toll that infertility takes on a couple. These are all facts that if her conscience, informed by her faith, had not been suspicious, she may have never discovered. Like the powerful Philip Morris advocating the benefits of smoking to the general public, modern pharmaceutical companies have mounted a successful public relations campaign touting the benefits of contraceptives while minimizing the harmful and lasting side effects.
Faith and work cannot, and should not be divorced. Faith, properly understood and integrated, can be a powerful force for good that lifts up one’s company, cause, and mission. We need strong leaders who are firmly grounded in truth to carry us forward and we need to recognize that without fully developing our spirituality, we live limited, underdeveloped lives.
Discounting the Eucharist
In my previous reflection on the intimacy of the Eucharist, I started to write about the insidious nature of complacency in the Catholic life, but realized it would be better to explore this topic separately. The fact is that we all have times in our lives when we don’t give the Eucharist the prayerful respect that we should. It’s a part of our fallen nature to not be able to fully recognize God within us, or even to view ourselves as God.
You’ve heard it said that grace is often made available to us when we need it, but we have to accept it. Grace is offered when we receive the Sacraments, on special feast days, when we’re in a particular personal trial, and even when we’re faced with temptation. The thing is, it doesn’t feel like it. When I’m tempted, and I mean really tempted, grace doesn’t ride in to save the day and take it away. Those moments of serious temptation can be extremely oppressive and leave you feeling like there’s no alternative but to commit that sin just so you won’t have that feeling of the air leaving the room. Accepting grace, however, isn’t about having your problems taken away. Accepting grace is about the strength of character and relationship that emerge when you walk away the victor after a serious standoff with temptation.
There is no more powerful direct interaction with God in the universe than the Eucharist. Even when you consider Mary’s acceptance of the Christ child within her, we experience the same reality of the fullness of God coming to live physically within us, and all of the grace that comes with the physical presence of God. That intensity of divine presence is enough light to completely blot out the darkness. No evil can withstand the presence of the physical presence of God.
Ok, so if we receive the Eucharist and carry Christ within us, why do we commit sin? I find the answer in the Gospel of Mark. “Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,” (7:18) “but what comes out of a person, that is what defiles.” (7:20) Satan’s goal is to provide the temptation to get you to freely choose to commit sin, he cannot do it for you. So in the moment of temptation you have evil exerting pressure on you externally, you have Christ living within you offering to exert overwhelming opposing pressure, but only if through the gift of free will you choose to accept His help.
God is not a genie and He has no interest in being one. He’s a dad. As a father, I don’t want Benedict to get hurt, and I don’t want him to fall, and I want him to make good choices and I don’t want to hurt his feelings when he sees that he’s disappointed me. Yet, if I don’t discipline him, I’ll have an out of control jerk who will live a miserable life. If I am constantly saving him from every little scrape and fall, I’ll have a robot not a human. I don’t want a robot as a son. I want a happy, well adjusted son who is able to freely choose to love me. This is exactly how God views us.
When we consider the true power of the Eucharist and the sublime power of having Christ take up residence physically within us, it becomes evident that the Eucharist is not to be discounted. We know why temptation abounds, we are grateful for the gift of free will, and we understand that He’s ready to help us overcome the evil in our lives if only we’ll get out of the way, stop playing God, and let Him be who He is.
The Poor Box
Every moment is a teachable moment in a child’s life. What your children don’t realize is that as a parent, you’re constantly figuring out what to do. The life of a parent is one of judgement, evaluation, and action. We have to judge the proper course, model the expected behavior, and act decisively and within the vision of our children. We learn each day how to be better for tomorrow, but more importantly, all of this introspection helps us to define who we truly want to be and to start moving in that direction.
One of the characteristics that I want my children to exhibit to a fault is one of generosity. The people who I believe live the greatest lives are all outrageously generous. I also have a great deal of compassion for those families who are being persecuted abroad and here at home who are unable to meet their material needs. Life has ups and downs and regardless of what circumstances lead to poverty, no one should have to go to bed hungry, cold, without shelter, or without the basic necessities.
The question is, how do you show a child who doesn’t understand the concept of poverty or hunger, how to have compassion? As kids, my father would always ask one of us kids to put the envelope in the collection basket, after which he’d thank us. If memory serves, we were all pretty interested in that simple act. I felt special. What I didn’t realize at the time was that he was modeling generosity. Every week, without fail, he’d have the envelope. I never saw most of my giving, but I saw this giving. Based on that experience, I’ve come up with a simple strategy that I intend on continuing throughout the balance of my life. I get a number of $5 bills and carry them in my wallet. After Mass each week, I pull one out and hand it to Benedict. Then, as we leave the Church, I ask him to put it into the ubiquitous Poor Box that’s in the back of Church.
Is $20 a month going to make a difference in someone’s life? Maybe. Do I know exactly where’s it’s going? Certainly I know far less than my other giving, but that’s not the point. The point is I’m showing Benedict that part of the Christian life is to choose to give money to those who need it. Sometimes I’ll include an explanation with it, something like, “This is for some other kids so that they don’t have to be hungry because no one should be hungry.” A simple act, a simple explanation, and a small seed planted each week that will hopefully one day bloom in an orchard of generosity.
There’s no wrong way to model generosity and there’s no wrong time to start. Most of your giving will be in secret, hidden from your community, peers, and children, as it should be. It’s important that you pull back the curtain for your children so that they can have these lessons deeply ingrained in their personality. After all, they’ll never be happy unless they live with a spirit of outrageous generosity.
The Insidious Nature of Stress
One of my greatest relational weaknesses is a knee-jerk reaction to place blame. It’s a quick reaction and one that’s rapidly subdued by logic and reason, but it’s still pretty nasty and completely unfair. Few situations rise to the level of blame even being a possibility, but even in those circumstances acceptance of responsibility and devising a path forward are far more productive. The downside to this weakness of mine is the damage that it causes in my marriage. I deplore negative thoughts about Alison, and yet this tendency keeps presenting them, trying to find an opening to exploit. It leaves me feeling out of sync with Alison and, in turn, less happy than I would be otherwise.
Alison recently completed a very demanding rotation that required nearly all of her emotional energy and a substantial portion of her day. She’d leave the house shortly before 7am and, most days, would be home long enough in the evening only to eat dinner, relax for 90 minutes, and then be ready for bed. Her stress level was very high and, coincidently, so was mine. It wasn’t anything that she did, it was simply the pressures that she had to undergo during work hours required a cooling off period that happened to be the only time that we were together during the day.
After a mere week into her new rotation, her stress levels were significantly reduced and I commented to her that I felt more in sync with her. I was less agitated, she was more present, and all was well. We had a laugh when we realized that it was our mutual high levels of stress that came between us and, now that it had evaporated, we were able to feel more connected and have more fun together as a family.
This lesson clearly illustrated for me the truly insidious nature of stress. Silently lurking in our days, it builds up like a pressure systems, exerting its negative effects on our thinking, our decision making, and our daily lived experience. My relational deficiencies, like my tendency to place blame, combined with the other events of my day build levels of stress that are harmful to my marriage. Alison’s job, the pressures that she’s under, and the interaction with people in very difficult situations, along with the pain of a mother being separated from her child, add stress into her live. When both of our stress levels are combined, we all suffer.
I bring this up not to air dirty laundry, but because there’s an important lesson that I think we can all benefit from. Self-awareness is the greatest weapon we have in our arsenal to control our lives. Self-awareness tells us when we’re starting to trend towards sin, when we’re making bad decisions, and when we’re the problem in a relationship. Self-awareness gives us to the clarity to understand where we are, where we want to be, and the steps that we need to take in order to get to that destination of choice. Now that we’re aware of the subtle effects of stress and the profound impact they can have on our lives when compounded, we can understand the importance of stress management.
Exercise, meditation, prayer, and even date nights are all effective methods of stress management. Stress will take a toll on your physical health and your emotional health, so keeping it in check will yield tremendous benefit not only for you, but for your wife and for your children. We’re quick to cut stress management activities out of our schedules when times are tight, but nothing could be more injurious to our relationships. Control stress instead of being controlled by stress.
Give Locally
Until recently, Alison and I didn’t really have a giving strategy. Each month, we’d go over the solicitations that we’d received from various causes in the mail along with how much we had budget for giving. We’d write checks, send them out in the mail, and that was how we did things. There’s nothing wrong with that strategy. People were helped, good causes were able to move forward, and all was well. Lately, I’ve been rethinking our strategy because what was missing was a feeling of connectedness.
Most of us are not called to be missionaries or to run charities, so instead we support those worthy actions materially. Our charitable dollars go towards enabling those who are directly involved in social work are able to help those who need it most. There is, however, the temptation for us to give money and wash our hands. We need to be connected in a very real way to our giving beyond our signature on the check.
An excellent way for you to be more connected to your giving is to do a sizable portion of it to local charities. Help people in your community, and watch your charitable dollars going to work right at home. This type of giving builds relationships between your family and the charity that you’re supporting, enabling you to perhaps even give of your time as well. Money gets food sent to a food bank, but it doesn’t unbox the food and put it on the shelves. Money buys an ultrasound machine, but it doesn’t talk to the scared pregnant teenager who needs to hear the truth of the baby growing inside of her. We need to do more.
There is great consolation and beauty in giving of one’s time because, in some way, it’s more difficult than giving of material resources. We place a premium on our time, and so when we give it away out of a spirit of generosity, we’re able to better serve the poor and vulnerable. Plus, an hour of volunteering bears more fruit than an hour of Netflix.
I most value the relationship that’s built between cause and donor. When you build a strong relationship, you’re in a position to shape vision, provide even more financial support, and understand that your donations truly are at work, helping people right where you live.
Our lives are busy, but by giving to local charities both materially and of your time, you’ll make a positive and lasting impact right where you live. Even more importantly, involve your children so that they can have a model of generosity that will shape the kind of adults they’ll be in the not too distant future.