Servant, Leader, Mother
My heart may not bleed, but I see Che as depicted in The Motorcycle Diaries as my kind of leader. He’s one who serves those he leads. I like to think of myself as a servant leader, a term I learned from a friend who was big into her church. She told me what she was learning in her class at the church, and I said, “That’s what I am,” and she promptly agreed.
Sometimes it goes beyond servant leadership into outright mothering. I tend to get all maternal on people with all the protecting and nurturing and whatnot. You’ve got to watch out for stuff like that because some people might take it as condescending, especially if you’re doing it to your boss or your boss’s boss. You can see it now:
Me: “Aww, you poor thing, are you having a hard time? What can I do to help you, darlin’?”
Boss: “You can do your job and get outa my bidness. That’s what you can do. I’m The Man, and I’m better than you. Grrr.”
That kind of “empathy” can actually get a person in trouble. I’ve lost friends over it. Of course, another thing that gets me in trouble is the fact that if I’m maternal, I’m inadvertently exhibiting mothering techniques learned from my own mother, which means, I’m hyper-critical.
I had this kid come to work in my department once, fresh out of the nearby Catholic university. Having escaped from his own domineering mother in Nebraska after high school, he wasn’t quite ready to meet up with her counterpart at his first big job. He was a talented kid, but he needed to learn attention to detail. He just wasn’t ready to learn it from me.
This whole maternal protector thing has been my biggest CLT. I once did a “Whatever!”-talk-to-the-hand to the company’s CEO in the middle of an all staff meeting in lioness protector mode. I’ve taken on superiors and adversaries who abused their power and their people. Thankfully, I’ve learned a little diplomacy since then.
All I can do now is serve and lead and help others to recognize how powerful a combination that can be.