Wisdom for the practice of leadership

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: After the Honeymoon

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us a lesson about what happens after the honeymoon.

I once saw a quote that said, “If you truly love someone, you love them twice.“ It reminded me of something my brother said to me just before I got married, when he told me that he loved his wife before he married her, but after he married her, he had to learn to love her all over again, but this time even better and more deeply. After I got married, I truly understood what he was talking about. You see, when you first get married, everything initially seems to be perfect and full of roses, and you are enamored with each other. That time is typically called the honeymoon period. But then you become aware of the scars and the flaws, which can bring challenges and conflict, so you have to learn to love who someone truly is.

The same thing happens when you step into a leadership role. Often, what may be really appealing at first becomes a struggle when the honeymoon period passes, and you realize all the things that were hidden beneath the surface that you were not aware of, but now you have to deal with or help heal. Don’t be too quick to leave when those things emerge, because now it’s your opportunity to help the organization grow well out of those scars. When my wife and I were first working together in a Christian school, we saw people leave for other opportunities, but come back fairly quickly. They had run into difficulties and become disillusioned, and wanted to come back. One of the effects that we observed, though, was that both they had changed and the school had changed in the time that they were gone, so it was and never could be the same.

One of the things we learned from that was to allow time when you make a change or step into a new leadership role. The Kübler-Ross Change Curve is the phenomenon of an initial dip that happens during a change. The dip in the change curve represents the decline in morale, performance, and productivity that occurs immediately after a significant change is announced or implemented, before it eventually curves back upward and becomes better than it was before the changes started. Too often, after the honeymoon and when the dip begins, people bail or give up before the dip has turned back up, and will try to go back to where they were before. When that is the case, they have given up too soon, but they also cannot reclaim the past. And that is what my wife and I observed and why we determined that we would not let the initial dip after a honeymoon period deter us from continuing forward when we moved into a new school leadership role.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from what my brother taught me about learning to love your wife well. After the honeymoon is over, there will be initial struggles and challenges that can cause you to feel like giving up. Don’t be too quick to do that. Relationally, if you work through those issues, the relationship will come out stronger. Organizationally, you will learn what you need to do to strengthen the organization and to strengthen your own leadership. Just remember that it’s always more difficult after the honeymoon is over, but if you don’t give up, that’s when your commitment and leadership have the opportunity to step up. If you do it well, what you will have will be much better than what you started with.

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 29: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (Some Things Can’t Be Undone)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us there are some things cannot be undone.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Some Things Can’t Be Undone

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us that there are some things that cannot be undone.

I was reminded of this when my granddaughter was playing with Play-Doh. We were sitting at the table, with all the different Play-Doh colors in front of her. She had a variety of molds and was using them to press the Play-Doh into different shapes and then telling stories with what she made. At some point, she took two different colors and squished them together. After a few minutes of playing with it like that, she handed it back to me and asked me to fix it and take it apart. But (if you have ever played with Play-Doh), you know very well that that was not about to happen. Once it has been mixed together, there is no way that you can completely separate it again.

The same is true for a lot of things. I can remember when I wanted to bake a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies to impress my bride early in our marriage, but without realizing I mixed up the measurements for the salt and the sugar. When the cookies were done, I gave one fresh out of the oven to my wife, excited for her to try them. She took one bite and asked me why it tasted like she was licking a block of salt. I didn’t want the cookies to go to waste and thought they couldn’t be that bad, so I decided that I could put up with salty cookies and was going to eat them anyway. It only took me one bite to realize that they were inedible, and there was nothing I could do to change that.

You probably have some examples of your own that illustrate the same thing: that is, some things can’t be undone. There are some things that, once you do them, you can undo, or put back to its original state, or restore to what it was. But there are other things for which, once they have happened, there is no going back. When hurtful words come out of your mouth, you can’t unsay them. When you spend resources on something that failed, you cannot recoup that loss. And when you make a bad decision, you can’t avoid the consequences.

So, if you cannot undo it once it’s been done, then what can you do? There are steps that you can take, and usually in this order:

  1. Take responsibility. You made a mistake, whether intentionally or not, and now you need to take ownership of it. Acknowledge what happened and the mess that it made.
  2. Learn from what happened. You need to reflect on what happened and determine what you can learn from it. Then take those lessons, and use them to grow and be better.
  3. Restore what you can. As much as is possible, repair what you can. Whether it’s relationships, resources, or processes, do whatever you can to restore what was damaged.
  4. Do something different. Once you have owned it, learned from it, and fixed what you can, now take what you’ve learned and do something different.

That’s the lesson of leadership from this little thing in life, from my granddaughter mixing two colors of Play-Doh together that could not be unmixed. You will make mistakes and do some things that cannot be undone, and, as hard as you try, you’re not going to avoid this ever happening. But Proverbs tells us that a righteous man falls down seven times and rises again. Just because you’ve done something that is irreparable does not mean that you can’t learn from it and be better. When you have done something you cannot undo, then do the right thing in response. Own it, learn from it, repair what you can, and do something different to move forward.

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 28: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (Every Moment Is a Teachable Moment)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it reminds us that every moment is a teachable moment.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Every Moment Is a Teachable Moment

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it reminds us that every moment is a teachable moment.

This is a lesson that jumped out at me when my children were little. They were in elementary school, and we were on our way to school in the morning. We pulled up to a stoplight at an intersection near our home, one that had multiple lanes. We were in the middle lane, and there were cars in front of us and on both sides of us (which is an important detail to know, with what I am about to describe). While I was waiting for the light to turn, I could see a minivan in my review mirror that did not seem to be slowing down. As she got a little closer, I could see that the driver was a woman with children in the back, and she was looking at her cell phone and not paying attention. It was clear that she was going to hit the back of my car, and I had all kinds of thoughts start going through my head (like “I have no way of getting out of the way,” and “Don’t panic and don’t say anything, so that the kids will be relaxed when we get hit and will, therefore, be less likely to be injured!”). At the last moment, she looked up, slammed on her brakes, screeched to a stop, and bumped lightly into the back of our car.

She came to enough of a stop that it did no damage, but in that moment, when the kids asked me what had just happened, the next thought that went through my mind was, “My kids are going to learn by what they see me do right now and how I respond.” With that thought in my head, I chose to tell my kids in a calm voice that someone had just bumped into our car, and we needed to pray for her because she must be having a hard day and we didn’t know what she was having to deal with in her life. Then I told them to keep praying for her while I went out to talk to her. Outside, I could see that there was no damage to my car at all, and I consciously chose to not express anger at her (because, again, I was thinking about what my children would learn as they were watching me out of the window). I hope that afterward she made it safely to wherever she going, but the most important thing for me that came from that experience was that every moment is a teachable moment to the people that are around you, and especially to the people who are close to you.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 conveys the same truth when it says, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Moses, speaking on behalf of God, describes how learning is happening all the time, in lots of ways, and both formally and informally. He applied this truth to the parent-child relationship, because children will learn not just from what their parents say, but also from what they see their parents do. In fact, I believe they will learn more from what they see than what they hear. As my dad would say to me, “Your walk talks and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.”

The same idea is true in your leadership. People are always watching you and learning from what they see. They are paying attention to how you handle yourself in difficult circumstances, how you are treating people, and how you respond in any given moment. What they see will teach them something, whether you realize it or not. You may teach them something about your character, or you may teach them how to act in a similar context, but you either way, you are teaching them. It’s up to you to decide what you are teaching.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from an almost-car accident that made me think about what my children would learn from what they saw me do. You may not realize it, but you are a teacher. People are learning from you, often without you saying a word and without your knowledge. That is a great power that you have, and, as Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben said in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Always remember that people are watching and will learn from what they see, so that you can choose to be intentional about what you are teaching them. Because every moment is a teachable moment.

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 27: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (Age and Time Happen to Everyone)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us something about the change that happens over time.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Age and Time Happen to Everyone

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us something about the change that happens over time.

I had an obvious and humbling reminder of this as I was playing with my grandchildren. We were on the floor together, playing with their toys, when I needed to get up to put the dog outside. I stood up, and that’s when it happened: I heard myself groan out loud. The sound of it stopped me in my tracks as I realized what it meant. I’m sure it was not the first time I groaned like that, but it was the first time that I noticed it. And that made me start thinking about all the other things that I do and the help that I need, like wearing readers or taking medicine, simply because I am aging.

You see, people, relationships, and circumstances do not remain static. They age and change over time (like me) and when they do, they require maintenance and care. In fact, experience and my counseling background have taught me that these things (people, relationships, and circumstances) tend to be either in a state of cultivation or deterioration, but not in between. They don’t stay the same, they don’t remain stagnant, so if you are not intentionally cultivating them, they will naturally decline and deteriorate. That’s the reason why you have to work at maintaining and developing them.

The same is true in organizations, which is significant for your leadership. They don’t remain static, but, rather, age and time bring change. Therefore you have to be intentional about how you navigate it. Some things need regular maintenance, like an oil change. Some things have become worn down and need to be refreshed, like a tuneup for your car. Some things need to be updated or replaced because they’ve worn out or are broken down, like when I had to replace the heating element in my dryer because it was no longer working effectively. Regardless, you cannot ignore it or do nothing. If you are not taking steps to address it, things will break down, and the damage and cost will be much more significant and more difficult to repair.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from hearing myself groan as I stood up. Wear and tear happens over time, which leads to deterioration. It is necessary for you to be intentional about maintaining and cultivating people, relationships, and your organization in order to navigate change with progress and growth and to maintain health. Remember, your organization either develops or declines, in part, based on how you take care of it. Age and time catches up to everyone, so be intentional about how you manage it.

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 26: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (What Is Your Crisis Response?)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us something about responding to crises.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: What Is Your Crisis Response?

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us something about responding to crises.

We had a great lesson in this when a UPS driver delivered a package to our house in the middle of the day. When he left it at the front door, he rang the doorbell. My two-year-old and five-year-old grandchildren were in the house, and when the doorbell rang, three things immediately happened: the dog barked loudly, one grandchild ran to our room and dove on the bed and under the covers, while the other one ran yelling to the front door. My wife jokingly commented that we have one who runs away from danger and one who runs toward it!

I can also remember in my first experience as a head of school (one that was in partnership with a church), when I would meet with the church leaders every week as part of the leadership team. Over time, when we would discuss issues that we would face or items that would require a decision, a pattern began to emerge, which was that one of the pastors would immediately jump to his answer, and then talk it through out loud, and often by the end of his conversation, he was at a different place than he was at the beginning. The other two pastors would jump in after a little bit and start to dialogue back-and-forth. I would be thinking and processing about the issue, and listening to what everyone else was saying, but without speaking, and when they were all done, I would provide my input. One of them was always the first one to speak, I was always the last one to speak, and the others were somewhere in between. Each approach had its benefits, but each also had its shortcomings.

In the same way, we all have different responses to crises and circumstances, and our response is often dependent on our leadership style, our personal characteristics, the current context, and our past experience. The end result is that a crisis comes or a decision needs to be made, and we respond based on that combination of things, which may be different than the way someone else might respond. However you respond, though, you need to make sure it is done on purpose, for a purpose. For that to happen, you need to do two things:

  1. Understand your natural response. You may run away from danger to keep yourself and others safe, or you may run toward danger to try to intervene. You may have an immediate response that happens without thinking, or you may take a little bit of time to analyze and decide the best response. Regardless, understand what your ingrained and learned response is likely to be, so that you will know how you automatically respond when a crisis hits or a decision needs to be made.
  2. Prepare a good response. Now that you understand your own tendency, determine when your natural response is going to be the best action to take so that you are prepared and can feel confident with that response when it is needed. Then determine when a different response might be needed, and decide what you need to do in advance to be ready, which may likely involve a predetermined written plan and the involvement of others who respond differently than you.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from watching two opposite reactions from my grandchildren to a doorbell ring. Know what you are going to do without thinking, and know when that will be the best response. But also know when you will need a different response, and prepare for it. Doing this can help prevent you from “leaping without looking” when you need to slow down, and from paralyzed inaction when you need to speed up. One way of responding isn’t necessarily going to always be the best way, so if you want to be prepared for crises and decisions, know yourself and make a plan.

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 25: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (The Gift of Jesus)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us about the importance of the gift of Jesus.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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