Not lead, LEAD. I am not talking about that heavy metal (pb) lead here.
Lead: as in led, lead, leader, leadership. That’s it.
Becoming a worthy leader to my kids is just about the hardest part of being a dad. I did not read the fine print in the Fatherhood contract well enough when we decided to batter egg with seed. Had I known, we might have had 4 fewer kids. Who knows.
My two older teenagers like to ride dirtbikes with me. We don’t do it often enough, unfortunately.
Here in southern California, we have vast tracts of open desert for us to ride in. It is not hard at all to cover dozens, if not more than a hundred miles of trails in an afternoon. The potential for getting totally lost is very real. Also, the possibility of having a wreck that disables one of the bikes or a rider is always on my mind. Being stranded dozens of miles from a road is no fun. Getting into trouble can happen in an instant: getting out can take days if one is that kind of unlucky.
Now I have been riding since before I could legally drive, so I have enough experience to keep the shiny side up most of the time. And I have been lost in the desert and have had to spend the night away from camp, waiting for daybreak. Turns out I am no good at navigating by the stars. I now know to carry a little emergency kit that has some essential survival tools anytime I go out.
When we ride together, I usually take the lead, which is fine with me ’cause I hate eating dust. But there are inherent dangers and distractions in being the lead guy. The leader runs over the snakes. He finds the half buried barb wire. He finds the unexpected ravine or open mineshaft. He discovers the big rock behind the little bush in the trail. The leader is the one constantly looking up and out for landmarks. The leader is the one constantly looking back to make sure everyone is still rightside up and close by. He must judge the skills of the other riders and not ride so fast as to cause the slowest rider to exceed his ability. Yet, to keep it fun, the leader needs to maintain a speed that keeps everyone challenged. The leader keeps his eye out for fun detours like steep hillclimbs or deep sandy washes that will induce pride in the riders once conquered. The leader’s gotta keep tabs on everyone’s fuel. A good leader, though he could do it, does not outrun his posse.
A good leader gives the boys confidence to ride faster and better than they could have if they were by themselves. Because he is really taking most of the risks for them. The bad stuff happens to the guy in the lead: the followers get to watch and laugh at his misfortune. All the boys need to do is keep upright and look to Dad for clues as to what is coming up on the trail. If they see me stand up real tall on the pegs, they know I am probably looking for the bottom of a ditch or ravine I am about to drop into. They know to slow down and see if dad comes out okay at the other end. I give them hand signals to indicate if they should go left or right, or slow way down. Basically, they have confidence that I will keep them moving at a safe, but challenging pace.
Their fun is magnified because the risks are minimized. I provide cover for their lack of experience.
Sometimes, one of the boys says, “I wanna lead for a while.” And I always let them. ‘Course they are only out front- Dad is still doing all the other work of navigation and keeping everyone together. But the point is that he feels like the leader. Nevermind that he forgot to look up or back for 15 minutes. He feels good that he just stayed upright while in the leadership position. We don’t ride nearly as fast, or take as many fun detours as when dad leads, but that is okay. We never get lost, but sometimes we discover new ways of getting home.
I can tell the boys how to ride, but they learn best while following. Case in point: My second oldest, the gazelle (called that for how he runs on the soccer field.), wanted to lead for awhile. I noted to him that the road we were riding on was hard packed and covered with loose sand. Very slippery in the corners, requiring a particular style of riding. Brake early, steady in the turns, forward on the seat, and accelerate out of the corners. I reminded him to keep his weight on the inside foot (which is quite counter-intuitive).
You probably guessed what happened. He launched, he rode for 30 seconds, he crashed. Hard. In the first sharp turn.
See, I told him what to do, but he just got lost in the moment and forgot my instructions. He wanted to be the leader, but hadn’t followed long enough so that his body knew instinctively how to handle the situation. His body limped for a few weeks after that episode.
Now, I am thinking of leadership at home. I tell my kids so much, hoping they will stay on the straight and narrow path. But where they learn their best lessons is when they see leadership modeled.
Let’s take lying for example.
We work hard to reinforce that lying is always wrong.
But sometimes I really don’t mean it. At least as far as my kids can see.
Let’s say you spot Pastor O’Flaherty coming up the front walk. Pastor is really a nice fellow but he stays until your eyelids droop, or you run out of beer. Whichever comes first. And tonight is poker night, so you are well stocked in the fridge.
“Honey”, you say to your 5-year old, “Why don’t you run to the front door and tell the nice Pastor that daddy is not feeling too well today and would Pastor mind coming back next week. I will be in the bathroom throwing up if he asks.”
Honey learns that convenience trumps ethics.
Or, let’s say you are a tightwad like me and buy most everything used. You have undoubtedly had to fill out the bill of sale for the DMV and must decide what to place in the “value” box. Last time I bought a used vehicle, the seller made it real easy. “How much do you want me say that you paid?” she asked. Open invitation to save a little on taxes. The boys were standing with us. “You write exactly what I paid”, I told her.
Junior learns that integrity is not free of charge.
I bought a remanufactured alternator from our local Kragen, which failed after the second day. So I decided to just bite the bullet and get a brand new one from Ford and return the broken one to Kragen. Through a complicated chain of events, the moron assistant manager would not give me the money back for the original alternator core, so I was out 60 bucks or so. He refunded the money for the broken new alternator, and my oldest son and I left the store in a huff, never counting the money. We were fuming that we felt ripped off and he had wasted hours of our time. Not to mention the hassle that his faulty alternator had caused us.
So as we are getting into my truck I decide to count the refund money, figuring he would have screwed it up. Turns out he did. In our favor. By $58.00. I looked at my son, incredulous. “It will take that moron hours to figure out how to credit this back if we take this money back” I said.
“Doing the right thing is going to cost us another hour across the counter with that idiot, Dad.”
And without skipping a beat, he says, “Let’s go back inside and do the right thing.”
Dad was tempted to give in on this one. Junior held the line. I thanked him later for not flinching at wanting to do the right thing. And I confessed that I didn’t want to do it, but I was so proud that he did.
Fatherhood is about living in a fishbowl. Our children watch us all the time and from every angle.
Right now, I am thinking ahead to my boys’ Fathers Days many years in the future. Thinking about what their kids will think of them. Hoping that my grandkids will be proud of my sons-their dads.
And reminding myself that I am teaching them how to lead, once it becomes their turn, with their kids.
- Have my lessons been repeated enough times?
- Do they have a clear idea of ”what would dad say or do” ?
- Have I given them ample opportunities to become leaders themselves?
- Have I let them fail a little bit?
- Have I let them see how I admit to my failures?
- Do I praise them for the right and ethical decisions they make?
This Father’s Day- Let’s commit to make it not a day merely of ties and cologne- Let’s dedicate it to the future fathers of America (or whatever country you live in). Let’s give forward to the next generation of dads, whether they are your sons or the husbands of your daughters. Let’s make this Father’s Day a day of rededicating ourselves to leading our children by word and deed.
Blessings
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