My March Madness: Wrapup - To Where My March Leads

To celebrate March 4th (March Fourth - get it?), I kicked off My March Madness series.  Throughout the month, it was my goal to explore how my time marching in the Saints Drum and Bugle Corps provided the foundation for many of the skills I came to find as essential in leadership. 

Jane Kise's Intentional Leadership served as a great touchstone for many of the experiences.  The specific skills I referenced throughout the month included networking, relationships, individuality, and personal development (Lens 1);  loyalty, accountability, visioning, and optimism (Lens 4);  as well as balance and discovery (Lens 12). 

Skills aside, there was something nagging at me throughout the month, some story I felt I was leaving out somehow.  As such things sometimes do, the missing link hit me smack upside the head last week with a Throwback Thursday image I posted to Facebook.

The "likes" and comments kept coming, and coming, and coming.  Many were from my Saints Siblings and Corps Cousins, remembering who that person in the picture was back in 1974.  Reading what they shared forced me to step back and think about what influences had the greatest impact on me at that time in my life.  Simply put?  It's when I learned Servant Leadership.

As Robert K. Greenleaf (2002) explains, "The servant-leader is servant first ....  It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.  Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead."  The simple action of me wrapping up the rope used to space out stanchions on the competition floor brought it all back.

We were surrounded by servant leaders in the Saints.  Parents who drove buses, crafted equipment, hunted down opportunities to march and perform.  Instructors who worked for next to no money, and even had to wait for that.  Judges who would stop by a rehearsal to give us a critique before the season started.  
 

Just some of my Saints family ...

Even more than experiencing servant leaders, we were encouraged to serve one another.  It's how I ended up doing everything I did BESIDES march while in the Saints.

Did we have our share of "leaders first," as Greenleaf describes?  Sure.  Truth is, they didn't work out very well in our corps culture.


I'm fortunate that I'm able to "give back" as a servant leader these days as part of the Catholic Community of St Matthias, and am forever grateful for those lessons learned during my drum corps days. 

Thanks for following along with my March Madness!

Interested in how my consulting services can help you
improve focus on leadership skills?  Contact me at parentehrg AT gmail.com.