Another Accidental Leadership Opportunity

These opportunities seem to be coming more and more often lately! With the passing of our dear friend Mark, our parish had a hole in their Confirmation preparation program that needed to be filled. My wife has been a catechist in the program for several years and my daughter a peer mentor since her own Confirmation in 2011. This year, our middle son is going through confirmation preparation. 

When Mark passed, I realized that not only could we not let my own son down, we couldn't let the other 35 kids from our parish down. When I say "we" I mean the parents of the confirmandi. Our parish is blessed to have a great Youth Minister, but Confirmation preparation did not strictly fall under her job description as Mark was the leader of the process, the organizer and to an extent the soul of it. Our Youth Minister helped out greatly, but it was Mark's gig and now we had a hole. 

 

Historically, the mid-point in the Confirmation process is a an overnight retreat at the Archidiocese's retreat house near our home. This retreat was scheduled at the beginning of the year and would occur less than one month after Mark's death. Our parish had no option but to have the retreat go on as planned. While attending the reception following the funeral, I let the Youth Minister know that I was available to help in whatever way she needed. My wife and son would there, so why not? Well, here I am, at the Msgr O'Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks, MD, blogging about my experience at the retreat while the confirmandi complete a silent reflection activity.

I never wanted this blog to be strickly about my CSI activities, but I also do not intend it to be about my faith or religious experiences. However, as the title boldly states, I am and continue to be an accidental leader, whether in business, in CSI or in my own faith journey and the journies of my children and parish community. I simply could not stand by and either let our Youth Minister and my wife take on this monumental task with limited help or let the retreat die altogether. I didn't fully appreciate what I was getting into but I did go in with open eyes. 

I was given limited tasks and was primarily responsible, with another father, to keep an eye on the young men after bed. The dormitory at our retreat house has two stories, so the young women are upstairs and the young men downstairs. By bed time, most were exhausted and went right to bed. There were only two that caused any issue and those issues were minor. I also played photographer as that was one of the things Mark handled. In about 24 hours, I took nearly 300 digital images and probably should have taken more!

 

 

I had a great time interacting with the confirmandi but also with the peer mentors and the other parents who pitched in to help out. All told, we had 39 confirmandi, 9 peer mentors and 9 adults on the retreat. I am a new Catholic. I went through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) in 2003-2004 and was baptized and Confirmed at the Easter Vigil on April 10, 2004. I make no secret of this and was surprised when one of the male peer mentors began asking about that experience and others along my faith journey. By Sunday evening, I realized that this young man very much sees me as a mentor. That's one of the great things that came out of the weekend.

One of the not so great things relates to my position as Chair of our parish Mission and Planning Council. I was elected to the Council in May 2013. I served through the 2013-2014 year and watched a Council that lacked direction and leadership. In June 2014, I was nominated to Chair the Council and won a contested election in July. Our parish staff is interested in a strategic planning effort that they have named "Invite - Transform - Act." While the name is good, they are short on direction and action and are looking to our Council for both. In January 2015, I'm empty. For the first time in my leadership life, I cannot see the end goal or the path in front of me to help our Council reach the goal.

I said as much last night at our meeting. I told the Council that I'm empty and I need their help. I didn't get much last night, but that's okay. I've been a leader long enough to realize that inspiration comes at strange times and in strange places. I suspect sometime before our February meeting, I'll get some thoughtful emails or during our February meeting, a course will come out. It might even come from me. 

 

How Are You Doing?

In my blog Quietly Leading, I mentioned a couple of things that I was planning to do during 2015 to be a better leader but more importantly a better husband, father and person. From that blog, I noted that I don't do New Year's Resolutions, but:

"I'm going to try to be a better leader and mentor in 2015. I'm going to try to listen more and be distracted less. I'm going to try to leave my phone in my pocket when in meetings and engaged in conversations. I'm going to try to be more present with my team at work, my committee with CSI, the Mission and Planning Council at church, my sons' boy scout troop and cub scout pack and most importantly with our family. I think if I can all do these things, I'll be a better leader, better mentor and much better husband and father."

The truth is I'm struggling. I think I'm addicted to my iPhone. I started off ok and was able to leave the phone alone and concentrate on the people in front of me. But as days go on, I find myself going back to using it as a crutch to fill the down time. I find myself thinking about the unread email when I should be focusing on other tasks or while in meetings. I heard a spot on NPR's "All Tech Considered" about that crutch notion. Some experts believe that adults are no longer able to be bored because of their smartphones. By not being bored, these experts contend, we are being less creative. NPR's station WNYC and their "New Tech City" segment are doing a "study" using an app called "Moment" that tracks how many times a day you check your phone and will report the results to you. You can look it up on the WNYC NTC web site. I'm thinking about downloading the app and joining in the study. If I do so, I'll probably blog about it here. 

The couple of things I struggle with the most are related to the instant access to the Internet and my Type A personality. I've grown accustomed to being able to Google whenever and wherever I want or need an answer. Just today, my wife and I were out in the country and passed a children's home. Neither of us were familiar with it, so she Googled it on her iPhone to see what group of children it serves. Same for conversations about movies or songs. IMDb and other apps are easy ways to answer questions like "what else has the kid from 'Love Actually' been in?" The answer is he's the voice of Ferb from the "Phineas and Ferb" cartoon on Disney Channel. 

As for my Type A personality, I am focused on many different projects at work. Not just design projects with clients but also the hiring process, studio management and education marketing. Those emails I mentioned earlier come in at all hours because guess what? Most other leaders of our firm are busy, Type A's like me and we think of things and shoot off emails at all hours from out smartphones. Beyond work, I'm also active in my son's boy scout troop and my other son's cub scout pack. Throw in my CSI activities and the Mission and Planning Board at church and I'm constantly receiving email from all sides. It is incredibly difficult to put the phone or iPad away. 

How are you doing on your New Year's Resolutions or attempts to do things better in 2015? I know it can be tough by mid-January, I'm proof of that. I took two weeks off over Christmas and New Year's and hit the ground running on January 5th! But now, by January 17th, I've had a couple of meetings that I wish I could take back. I've had a couple of conversations where I was less than attentive. I took Friday off and realized I neglected to tell my fellow studio leaders I would miss our Friday meeting.

But, I'll hit the ground again on Monday, January 19th ready to go. I'm going to make this happen. I'm going to be more attentive and a better leader in 2015. I think that's why New Year's Resolutions often fail: it is hard to change your ways. If you expect an overnight change, like quitting smoking cold turkey, you will most likely fail. Like the glacier in the below photo, change is slow.

Whatever your resolutions are, keep working on them. By February, you should be a little better. By March, April, May, you should be a little better. Big changes can take a lot of time to implement. Stick with it; make it happen.

Quietly Leading

Today is one of those gross, winter days in Maryland where it is 35 degrees F and raining. The chill cuts all the way through you, especially when you're attending the funeral of a good friend. My friend Mark passed away suddenly on Monday from an aneurysm. He was 60 years old and leaves behind a loving wife, wonderful daughter, son-in-law, mother, brothers and nieces and nephews. I'll miss him immensely, as will many, many others.

Seems a strange way to start a blog on leadership, but there is a point. My family and I attended his wake and memorial prayer service at our home parish last night and his funeral today at his home parish. Mark's wife is the Pastoral Life Director at our church and for much of the last decade he worked extensively with the young people of our parish preparing them for confirmation. Speaker after speaker last night and today, even our own Archbishop, spoke of Mark's quite and peaceful nature and his creativity and unwavering service to the Catholic Church but more importantly to the youth of our church. That is most evident by the large number of teary eyed youth that were in attendance at the prayer service and funeral.

But beyond his obvious service to youth and the numerous local and national awards Mark won while doing that service, another notion was mentioned by many: Mark was always present and engaged. If you were with him, he was with you, no distractions, no random thoughts; he was engaged in your conversation. Mark looked you in the eye, listened to your words, watched your non-verbal language and heard both. I remember a conversation we were having three or four years ago and I guess I mentioned my daughter and some boy she was involved with at the time. My daughter was probably 14 at the time and his daughter was 24 or 25. Mark spoke of some of the boys that his daughter had brought home and how he embraced them until the relationship ended. Her current boyfriend at that time, now her husband, Mark recognized was different and he spoke of the joy he had of watching their love blossom. He didn't say it overtly, but I now realize he was helping me prepare for what I'm seeing now that my daughter is in college and is having more serious relationships. Mark wanted me to know, without saying it bluntly, that I was raising an intelligent and caring young woman who would make the right decisions in her relationships.

I never thought of Mark in terms of mentoring to me. My wife has helped with the confirmation classes for five or six years and I think she would agree that he mentored her. Reflecting on times when I spoke with Mark, I think he was mentoring me while also leading me to make good decisions about my family and my faith. I'm sure many, many others had the same experiences with Mark that I had. Maybe that's the most important leader of all: the quiet, unimposing leader.

I don't normally do "New Year's Resolutions." I typically try to take some time off at the holidays and reflect on what went well last year and how I can make next year better. But in listening and reflecting on what I've heard said about Mark, I'm going to try to be a better leader and mentor in 2015. I'm going to try to listen more and be distracted less. I'm going to try to leave my phone in my pocket when in meetings and engaged in conversations. I'm going to try to be more present with my team at work, my committee with CSI, the Mission and Planning Council at church, my sons' boy scout troop and cub scout pack and most importantly with our family. I think if I can all do these things, I'll be a better leader, better mentor and much better husband and father.