Leadership Lessons:
What I Learned From My Father
Continued from Page 31
The Christian Reader September 2008
to pursue all of our callings and to maximize to our greatest potential.
My Father was a member of the same church all his life (ninety-three
years) Frederick Evangelical Lutheran Church, the oldest historical
church on the island of St. Thomas. He led us to church and Sunday
school every Sunday. He served as an usher, I know for sure for over 60
years and in other ministry positions. I learned about commitment and
service from him in this area. He would go every week to the sanctuary
and hand fold the bulletins him and his buddies. Even when the church
got an automatic folder my father and the usher ministry continued with
the process folding by hand. At age ninety-one he became visual
impaired and could no longer do volunteer work as an usher and
resigned. He was honored for his commitment and service for those
years of service.
2. Be a unique leader.
When I began leading as a company commander, my first platoon of
non-commission officers, I interacted with each soldier the same way.
The challenge with this is that people are very different and very unique.
Many personalities can interpret the same leadership style differently.
What works well for leading one person may be less effective for leading another. One day, I called my Father, I was in tears across the United
States on the telephone and I knew he would rescue me with some
words of encouragement. I called him to say, I was quitting the Army
because ther H