Some of my biggest leadership challenges have been as a father. Communicating, leading, and collaborating at work often pale in comparison to having to do the same thing at home with your children.
All my children are athletes. They are amazing at pushing themselves, showing up for practices, and putting in the effort on game days. There are days when I have seen the enormous challenges that my children have overcome in their sports. As a parent and leader there is a desire to want to jump in, share your experience, and “fix things”.
How do we learn in life? By failing, picking ourselves up, learning from our failures, and moving on. Having the patience to stand back and let my children fail has been something that I have had to work on.
There was a year one of our children had an unbelievable challenge in being accepted on the basketball team. Other players would actively pass around him when he was on the floor. There was bullying in the locker room. Our son was ostracized because he was the wrong color, lived on the wrong side of town, and was in a high achieving academic program at school.
While Karalee and I were challenged to watch our child in pain, we could only offer support. With the help of experts, we coached our son to always encourage the other players, no matter how much they ignored him or his efforts.
The turning point came in one of the biggest tournaments of the year. Our son came off the bench, along with another bench player. Together they shut down the other team defensively. It was a turning point in the game and resulted in the team winning the tournament. The coach used that example to change the behavior of the starters on the team, emphasizing that they could not win without being a team. And they could not win without players like my son and his friend. That year, that team went on to win the BC Provincial Basketball AA Championship — the first time the school had ever done so.
Our son showed incredible patience. He went through tremendous learning. He taught me many valuable lessons about growth, perseverance, and patience. Lessons that I draw from today.
What lessons have you learned from having the patience to let someone you lead fail and recover?
