Wheat Only Grows From Wheat
It is June and one of my small pleasures is to tend the garden in my backyard that we plant each spring. Although it looks like some critter got after the peas we planted this year, the rest of the crops look good and should start yielding their harvest soon. It’s really not a surprise that the only vegetables that will grow in our garden come from the seeds we planted. Bean seeds become beans, tomatoes seeds become tomatoes and carrots seeds become carrots. They never get mixed up and grow something else. Wheat can only grow from wheat, and it can come from nowhere else. That being the case, is it any wonder that leaders can only come from leaders?
If your desire is to become a great golfer, you take lessons from a golf pro. If you want to be victorious on the tennis court, you take lessons from a tennis pro. If you want to master the laws of thermodynamics, you sit at the feet of brilliant professors so trained. So it is with leadership. If you want to be a great leader, you would be well served to study, emulate and learn from the great leaders that have gone before you.
My leadership thought for today is the other side of this coin, a brief reminder of the important task of any leader, the responsibility to mentor, groom and grow the leaders that we are responsible to develop. Wheat only comes from wheat, and leaders only come from leaders. We need to take the responsibility to “reproduce ourselves” and to contribute to the maturing of the leaders that are to follow us, those who will ultimately assume the mantel of leadership we pass on so that they might continue to carry on the mission. As Moses prepared Joshua, so too must we intentionally and with planning and forethought prepare those that we are responsible for so that they might be ready for their time in the sun.
When I look back at my career at General Motors, without a doubt the most satisfying of all my experiences was in the opportunities that I had in mentoring and training young leaders. With time I was able to form several small groups of young leader proteges and we intentionally set aside some time to devote solely to their personal leadership development. I am happy to say that many of those involved in those leadership development small groups, self-named the “Army”, “College”, “Knights” and “Apollo” have gone on to stellar careers based on their remarkable leadership skills.
I was vividly reminded of the importance and the pure pleasure that can come from investing personal time and energy in the development of young students of leadership when I received word that one of the “Knights”, Tracy Mack had just been promoted within the Daimler Truck Company. Since our time together, Tracy had gone on to become the Director of Engineering at Thomas Built Busses, and has now accepted a larger role as the Director of their Next Generation Cab Program. When I received word of her promotion I was very happy for her, and I was deeply gratified. Aristotle once said that there are two times in a man’s life when he is not jealous; when a son surpasses a father, and when a student surpasses a teacher. I think he was on to something there, and there is indeed great satisfaction to see a student of Tracey’s caliber succeed and prosper. Her announcement follows:
As leaders we need to stay hungry and continue to learn so that we may be able to meet the ever evolving and endlessly changing environments in which we find ourselves. The strategies we used effectively yesterday may be woefully inadequate to meet the needs of tomorrow. It was once said that when you stop learning, you stop leading. As leaders, we need to be addicted to learning and growing. With that being the case, as leaders we also have the ultimate responsibility to pass our learnings on to the next generation of leaders. Heaven knows they will need all the help they can get to meet the challenges they will encounter on their watch.
Tracy, well done. I’m proud of you!
Stay Strong,
Terry
