Leadership Lessons you learn from your dad.

This one is personal. But it matters. Where do we as leaders get our start? We are all on a journey in our careers, we continue to learn and evolve (most of us anyway), we gain mentors, we may go to conferences and workshops, perhaps even throw a MBA in there for good measure. The best of us keep learning and keep improving, reaching a point where we seek new learning because it becomes innate, not because we are trying to or were told to. That's the leadership instilled in us at a young age I think!

But, we also got our start somewhere. For those of us lucky ones, it wasn't a great prep school, or the ivy-covered walls of some fine institution of learning. Those likely built on a foundation, a foundation that was created the old-fashioned way. At home. Again, the lucky ones, I understand we didn't all have what I had at home, and some still made it, but my guess is many of us had a father surrogate who helped along the way. By the way, no slight to the great moms out there -- these lessons come from many sources. But my message today is this: Leadership starts at an early age, it starts from those around you and starts through examples and words that are often just others living their life and showing you the way - and the importance of watching, learning and taking it all with you.

My dad. High school graduate. Started at Bell of Pennsylvania (now Verizon) at 19 years old and one of his earliest jobs was as a coin collector -- meaning he used to empty the coin box at a pay phone. Pay phone? What's that!?! He worked there 37 years until he "retired" (not sure it was his idea, but) and went on to work other things for probably another 20 years. At the peak of his career, he was a "Manager" I think. Never a director, not a VP and certainly not what we call today the C-Suite. Raised six kids, stay at home wife/mom, we never had a lot and never wanted for anything. It is just how it was. Oh, and my father taught me more about leadership and how to navigate this life than all the professors at all those Universities ever could.

Three leadership lessons I learned from my dad:

1. Work Ethic. 37 years. He may have taken a sick day. But I don't remember it. He commuted from the 'burbs to the city, took the train. Every day. Wasn't easy. Never heard him complain. Did his job, every day. Wasn't trying to move up, never heard him talk about it. Worked late at times. Stressful at times for sure. But he was consistent.
2. Work Life Balance. I remember as a kid the phone would ring, it was dad, letting mom know what time his train would get in. "Regular Time". Click. He was off the make his regular train home. Memory says that arrived at the Ardsley stop around 6:30PM. Those were the good nights, early nights, when he didn't have a dinner. So, he wasn't always able to coach our teams, but he was always able to be at EVERY game, practice or event. Dinner could wait. Also, on weekends he literally ran the local basketball league. Weekends. He was there all the time. We didn't use words like work life balance back then, but he lived it.
3. It was NEVER about him. Selfless. Make it about others. Never talked about himself. I've written the importance of great leaders being focused on others, not themselves. Two short stories. One, I never knew much about what he did at work. But we did know the people he did it with. His boss, his co-workers all became names familiar to us. Relationships and the importance of people over work was an easy lesson to learn. Second, that train station was about a mile away. We had a car, and I was 4 of 6, so eventually there were other drivers or babysitters. I imagine my mom or siblings dropped him and picked him up. I did when I was driving. But my memory was snowstorms. Not the big 12 inch storms, they were rare. But the 1-3 inches rain snow mix Philly is famous for. Drivable, but sloppy. My image on those days was dad, bundling up in boots and his raincoat and walking the mile to the train station. Because of course he did.

That's it kids. Leadership lessons from dad, simply: work hard every day, manage your work life balance and make it about others and not yourself! Look at that, dad just saved you that six figure Ivy league MBA! ;)