What is a leader? More specifically, what makes a good leader? I think it's safe to say that different groups of people require different leaders. An office team that is constantly trying to make deadlines needs a leader who is assertive and direct; there are no time for emotions and hurt feelings. The leader of a church, I often find, is one who is wise and trust-worthy; he or she is someone who empowers their congregation and leads them by example. On sports teams, a leader or captain is often the person that can motivate the team; one who pushes and challenges the group by mentoring players, giving them pep talks, or simply gets them going by playing harder.
Every since I have moved into my new role as a site supervisor for children with UrbanPromise Toronto (urbanpromise.com), I have been learning, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly, what it means to be a good leader. Now, in my role, a good leader needs to embody several traits. Working with children, he has to be both sensitive and firm in his interaction with each one of them. Almost every child I've worked with does not respond well to yelling or harsh verbalization, and of course, because of this, effective changes in behaviours are not usually achieved in this way. At the same time, children lose focus quickly and often forget how they should act and why they should do so; this is when an effective leader needs to be firm. Sensitivity only gets you so far, especially if a child refuses to hold your hand and, at any moment, can run into a street with oncoming traffic. Another very important trait for a leader to have in my role is the ability to plan ahead, stay organized, and make decisions. Working with children, nothing is ever clean-cut, and it almost never plays by the book; children's moods change in an instance, and at any given time, one of them will need to go pee (and difficulties lie when "holding it" is not necessarily a skill-set they have learnt). Yet, at the same time, children need structure; without it they go crazy; and to always be 10 steps ahead of them is of the utmost importance.
Being blessed with free tickets for my entire camp (20 kids, 15, however, actually showed up) to the Toronto Marlies Game (for those that do not know, Toronto Maple Leafs Farm Team), all of Camp Victory, my leaders, and myself, travelled downtown to watch live. Now, this being my first full-camp field trip, with myself as the head leader and main point of contact, I, needless to say, learnt a great deal. Today was one of those days where, to simply put it, being a leader was hard. After we got back to the church and got all the kids home, I sat in the office slumped in my chair at the complete maximum of exhaustion. While I sat there, I could not help but think of all the discouragements I felt throughout the day. Here are some of them:
- I had hoped to get to the meeting spot an hour earlier than the kids so that I could print off information to give to my leaders (ie: kids contact information and emergency numbers). I also wanted to prepare first aid kits and buy extra bus tickets just in case any of my kids did not bring fare for the TTC. Unfortunately, I had a hard time sleeping the night before and woke up late, rushing to the church only half an hour before to get all this done. A very stressful way to start the day.
- A child who has been having problems listening at camp was dropped off by his mom for the trip. Despite knowing that he would be a handful and would need the complete devotion of a leader to stay with him at all times (a luxury we cannot really fulfill), I eventually conceded with his mom and took him on the trip. Because he is a hard kid to deal with, I decided that I was going to be that leader that spent the whole time with him. Not only did it make me completely exhausted, playing the role of his parent, friend, discipliner, entertainer, and comforter, but it also made it a lot harder for me to oversee all the kids and leaders.
- Today involved a lot of waiting and patience: a virtue most children do not have. Our commute was from Kipling and Finch, to Finch Station, subway to Union Station and streetcar to Exhibition Place...and when it was all over, go back. In total, this trip took us about 4 hours (2 hours each way) + a 3 hour game (this does not include all the extra random "waiting" times). On top of this, when we got to the arena, there was a mix-up, and the 2nd group that was joining us, who also had all the tickets, came late. This meant the children had to wait an extra half hour outside of the arena. Now when working with little kids, the last thing you want to do is have "dead time" in which there is nothing for the kids to do and the space which they can move in is extremely limited. During a lot of the trip, many of my kids grew restless and bored, and were not afraid to show it through their actions. Naturally this seemed to reflect poor organizing and planning on my part.
- Throughout the day, I constantly felt like I was doing a poor job as a leader. One example of this is when we were in the bus and my kids, being restless, were starting to get a bit loud. One person in the bus turned around and announced to me in a rather belittling way that these children do not have to be this loud, and that he had 3 kids at home who had much better manners.
- The Marlies lost 3-1.
But as I sat there longer I questioned if the whole day really was a complete failure. I questioned if anything actually good happened today and if it was really rational to count this day as a loss. Here are some positive encouraging things that came to mind:
- Many of our kids are not exposed to many new things. They do not leave their community much and do not often get the opportunity to explore the various parts of their city while being supervised by trained and responsible adults. One of my kids informed me today that she had never been downtown in her entire life. On top of this, with hockey being such a big part of Toronto, free tickets to a live game are nearly impossible to get. The fact that the kids got to see a live hockey game in one of the most lively parts of Toronto, an opportunity they will probably never get again, is pretty awesome.
- The kids loved the game, all for different reasons. Some were very engaged in the actual game itself, others just liked chanting "Lets go Marlies!" at the top of their lungs. A bunch of the kids made their way down to meet the cheerleaders and basically ambushed them all asking for autographs on their flags (which they got for free), hands, and some, even shoes. As if our 50 free tickets to the game was not enough, almost every kid loved when they discovered that one of the concession stands was giving away free hot dogs; once the word got out to my girls and boys, another ambush occurred, this time on the hot dog lady. After the game, another stand we found was giving out free pizza...the children, still excited and happy to take it, ambushed lighter (probably because they were all so full from the hot dogs). Either way, what an experience for them: again something new, but also just the mere feeling of being blessed with so many things.
- The kid who had been having difficulties, and that I spent my time with today, warmed up to me throughout the day. Usually this child does not speak to most leaders and is not willing to engage anyone in conversation; almost as if he is in his own “5 year old world”. But sitting with him everywhere and holding his hand anytime we walked, he eventually began to trust me, seeing me as someone who cared and loved him. I gave him my camera on the bus and during the game and he loved to take pictures and show them to me. He also cried and did not want me to go when I had to leave the group to check on the tickets, asking him to stay with one of the other leaders.
- Many of the leaders that I lead are new to this job (and some even new to the country, being missionaries from Germany) and new to their responsibilities with the children. Although there were a couple things that could have been improved, overall, as a team, we worked pretty well together. Given the context of the trip, all in all, each leader worked hard and was able to take care of the children they were responsible for. To add to that, being on the bus and train with them for so long, they were also able to connect with the kids and develop deeper relationships with them individually.
What I have been realizing is that we, as human beings, allow our vision to so easily be clouded by the negatives and discouragements in our lives. We go through life pondering how we can improve, things we wish were different, and mulling over the mistakes we have made in the past. It is almost as if all the things that are going wrong in our lives contaminate our whole being, and the fact of this simple impurity is enough to define the answer to the question we are always asked: “how are you doing?”.
Yet I think often times we overlook all the good things which occur in our lives. Of course it is not always the case, and sometimes there are a lot of things just not going well for us. But it is important to note that it is in our nature to focus and zone in on the negative, and I question how many good things, truly positive and encouraging things in our daily living, we overlook or disregard because we are so focused on the “bad”. Today, I realized that, sure, things were tough and at times I felt like I was going to break down and fall apart. But all in all, when I think of what we accomplished today; all the things are going to matter and mean something to myself, my leaders, and most importantly, my children 10 years down the road; it is hard to stay discouraged and bummed out.
And maybe that’s what it means to be a good leader: a person that can take all the discouragement, all the struggles, all the pain and failures and mistakes; a person that can take all those things, bundle them, and put them to the side. A person that doesn’t throw those away or completely disregard them, but does not let them get in the way of all the good things that are going on as well. A good leader, maybe, is someone who acknowledges the negative, but does not lose his or her footing by holding on to the positive. Maybe that good leader is one who realizes that it is the positive that stabilizes their motivation to keep going, dispelling all the day-to-day discouragements he or she may encounter.
Yes, one of the discouragements today was that the Marlies lost 3-1. The Maple Leafs, however, are on a hot streak, which to me suggest that the encouragement is that Brian Burke and Ron Wilson picked the right people for the Leafs, and dumped the wrong people with the Marlies.
