Leadership - wait for Herbie

While I was out walking the neighborhood a few days ago, I came across a great leader. He was at the front of a line of about 20-25 kindergarteners who were tending their way from the park to their vans over at the school.  It's Christmas break here and this looked like a daycare group out for some fun.

When I first passed the group, they were swirling near a street crossing.  A few minutes later, I stopped to watch and see what they would show me.  It just seemed like God was letting me know there was something there for me.

There they were, spread out along 100+ feet of sidewalk.  Kind of in bunches, where a little one stopped to look at something, or (clever, this) let a gap open so he could sprint and close it.  Much noise all across the line.  Well, it didn't take them a mile to get spread out this way.  More like 200 feet.

There was a man at the head of the line, and a lady at the end.  Kind of like shepherds with their little flock.  He led, at a slow pace that the little ones could follow; she stayed where she could see everyone at once and make sure all the noses arrived.  He kept looking back over his shoulder as they spread out, then stopped and waited for the gaps to close.

He was a great leader.  He was going somewhere, all right, but that somewhere involved the somewhos.  (Every-who, actually.)  He didn't hector anyone, but he did call them, saying, "Follow me."  They knew his voice, even if they were looking in all other directions.  And he waited until they could and would follow.

She was a great leader, too, kind of like the other half.  She kept her eyes on all the little sparrows, and alert for dangers all around.  When you're a parent, it seems like you save your kid's life about every other day from cars, dogs, lostness, automatic doors and such.  Try 20 at once, if you dare.  I doubt we pay these people enough.

Eliyahu Goldratt wrote in The Goal a few years ago a story about a scout hike.  The fast ones ran way ahead, the slowest one (Herbie) fell far behind, as usual.  Alex, our protagonist, is the frustrated adult leader of this troop.  He wants Herbie to get the lead out, and he's tired of hearing the bitching up and down the line about slowpokes and Herbies.  He stops them all, gathers them, and puts Herbie at the front of the line.  Well, everyone stays together, but the fast ones complain about the trudge.

Alex asks, "Well, can you think of any way to help Herbie?"  The boys end up distributing the contents of Herbie's pack among themselves, leaving Herbie free to swing away at his best, unburdened pace.

Alex made the connection between the production-line bottlenecks he had at work and the scattered troop.  The goal of a production line isn't to make part of a product quickly, and part of it someday.  The goal is for all the parts to arrive in the customer's hands together, working.  You do that by finding the bottlenecks and fixing them:  more machines, faster machines, better training for operators, etc.

The goal of a scout hike isn't for some to arrive early, and some late.  The goal is to arrive together.  The goal of a Christian life isn't for some to arrive early, and some late.  The goal is to arrive together.

Jesus said, "Follow me," but he also said ""So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all."  Sounds to me like a leader is emotionally (and sometimes physically) at the front and the back of the line.

We often extol the virtues of people who appear to have arrived somewhere "first" (pulpit, bestseller list, etc. - think of any Christian bestselling author, for example).  We keep calling them "leaders" without asking, "Is anyone following, or able to follow, these people?"  Rarely do we look closely enough to see if the Herbies arrived at the same time.  I'm afraid they don't.  I suspect we'd rather have apparent heroes than real ones; they're easier to come by. 

But sometimes I'm Herbie.  Sometimes you are.  We need the real heroes, the real leaders, who look over their shoulders, wait, and call the rest of us who can't or won't quite keep up.  We need leaders who call us to lead, and co-followers who help us carry (or dump) our baggage. There are seasons of life where we need someone to save our lives, it seems, every day. We need human faces and voices who remind us that our Father, who is good, is watching and enjoying us, his kids.

We can learn a lot from kindergartens.