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<\/a><\/p>\nTwenty-three years ago, my wife and I were given a leadership goal, and this goal was repeated three times, successfully raise this child to adulthood.\u00a0 As the Venn diagram shows, everyone in the family can agree upon the same goal.\u00a0 For us as parents (leaders) that goal gives us a vision for how we need to accomplish that goal.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our children in turn trust us as parents to help them move toward that goal.<\/p>\n
Simon Walker in Leading Out of Who You Are,<\/em> the first book in his The Undefended Leader<\/em> trilogy talks about giving things up.\u00a0 He says \u201cIt is the central proposition of this book that life observes a fundamental principle.\u00a0 When someone is willing and able to give away what they possess, they find that it is given back to them transformed into something greater.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 I realize that Walker is talking about leadership, but there are similar parallels to parenting.\u00a0 In the middle of the Venn diagram is power.\u00a0 As a leader we enjoy the various forms of power that we possess.\u00a0 Walker mentions six different kinds of power, but says the important thing is to recognize how the power a person possesses is used.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Walker talks about how as a parent when we teach our kids a skill, we empower them while at the same time take away some of our own power.\u00a0 My oldest son was in Boy Scouts and through Scouts and he learned many skills.\u00a0 As he developed those skills, I was able to relinquish some of my tasks to him.\u00a0 Can you get a fire going for me?\u00a0 Can you set up that tent for me?\u00a0 Can you make a dessert in the Dutch oven for me?\u00a0 Giving away some of your power is essential in being a good leader.\u00a0 What power have I given up being a parent?\u00a0 I had to give up some control and allow my kids to make their own decisions and to experience the consequences of those decisions.\u00a0 Walker talks about the need to enable people to embrace struggle.\u00a0 He says that the leader \u201cneeds to be the one who can allow things to go wrong and let people struggle and fail\u2014for only then will people start to take responsibility for the situation and the choices they make.\u201d[3]<\/a> This is not always an easy task, we are emotionally invested in the relationship.\u00a0 Friedman would suggest that a leader needs to differentiate, step outside the emotion, and make the decision that is best for the system.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 At times that means letting people in the system experience pain.<\/p>\n In allowing my children to make their own decisions, I\u2019ve had to allow them to try to figure out their vocation.\u00a0 Walker says \u201cThus, a leader enables others to identify and embrace their own vocations.\u00a0 This is not career guidance.\u00a0 This is more than identifying some passion or drive or skill that might suit a particular job or role.\u00a0 This is helping someone else come to understand what their unique and specific calling in the world may involve.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 I think about Tom Camacho\u2019s Mining for Gold<\/em> book.\u00a0 As parents we are helping our children identify the gold that exists inside them, coaching them along the way.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 My children are academically gifted.\u00a0 My oldest son, rather than going on to college choose to enlist in the United States Marine Corp.\u00a0 My youngest daughter choose to do her senior year at our local career center. We\u2019ve had people question us as parents and them individually about the choices they made.\u00a0 Comments have also been made about them wasting their academic talent.\u00a0 This has been and continues to be a process for them, trying to figure out their vocation.\u00a0 Walker says that \u201cvocation is that clarity of identity and purpose, power, and freedom, that you gain when you are truly available.\u201d[7]<\/a> My wife and I allow them the freedom to explore, trying to find that sense of clarity, and we make ourselves available to help them when they ask.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My youngest is less than two months away from turning eighteen.\u00a0 We are close to accomplishing our goal of successfully raising four kids to adulthood.\u00a0 However, over the last few months, my wife and I have come to the realization that it is emotionally harder to parent adult children than younger children.\u00a0\u00a0 When they were little, my wife and I would pray, thanking God for the opportunity to parent our children while acknowledging that they are His and not ours (laying down our power).\u00a0 I truly believe that our children are in the process of being transformed into something great.\u00a0 However, it is hard to not be physically present for them when they are experiencing trials.\u00a0 Our oldest is five hours away, and our son in the USMC is 10 hours away.\u00a0 Both have struggled this past year, a car accident, questions about what to do, etc.\u00a0 We want to pick them up like they were five, hug them and protect them.\u00a0 Walker talks about it being good for leaders to periodically lay down their roles, as a parent we can\u2019t do that every five years.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 But as a good leader, we must know when to let go.\u00a0 Reflecting on this, maybe, as they have left home, we haven\u2019t emotionally let go, fully giving them over to God.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Simon Walker, The Undefended Leader<\/em>, (Carlisle, CA: Piquant Editions Ltd, 2010). 154.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Walker, 41.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Walker, 151.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Edwin Friedman A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.<\/em> (New York: Church Publishing, 2007).<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Walker, 155.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Tom Camacho, Mining For Gold<\/em> (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2019).<\/p>\n