LEADERSHIP PATH, PATHOLOGY, OR JUST MOVE OUT OF THE WAY

As part of an attempt to establish my identity as a guide through events growing more common everyday, I offer Leadership Path, Pathology, Or Get Out Of The Way.

It’s a take on ‘Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of The Way,’ the saying hard chargers use when they get lost and don’t want anyone to know.

First, my leadership bonafides from the beginning:

I grew up in a small town, the sort of place too often forgotten when people ask, “Where are you from?” and the answer is, “All over the place,” or, “It’s no place you’ve heard of.”

That’s no answer. The right answer is North Bend. If you can’t say North Bend then go with all over the place.

Yes, I’m from a small town, but even more, I made the most of it. In my youth the high school had few winning sports traditions outside of the wrestling team. I had one injury after another in sports and I became a late convert, but took it up with enthusiasm.

This was an era of people named Gary West, an open division national greco champion, Vern Brecke a Jr. World Team member, Robin Richards who won everything twice, and two time state greco champ Brad Nyleen.

They were hard to match up with, but that was the big challenge, the leadership challenge path.

To broaden my leadership experience I dropped out of college and went back. It happened more than once but my thirst for education was never slaked.

In between dropping out from Southern Oregon College, now university, and UofO, I joined the Army where my leadership skills were more evident; I attended leadership school in bootcamp, a privilege that went along with being the top dog in the platoon.

Grown men looked up to me, guys that signed up just under the thirty five year old cut off. Kids wanted to be me, the seventeen year olds who joined with parental consent.

I was nineteen. The platoon had three other Platoon Guides through the training cycle, but the troops bonded with the first guy. They took to asking me if they had to follow orders from anyone but me. Nice, right? I said, “Yes, you do.”

Applied Leadership

As a family leader I raised two boys who became men of consequence instead of reactionary punks looking for excuses to blame failure on.

I’m a marriage leader of more than thirty years, which I attribute to my wife. There are certainly better fish in the sea than me, but based on statistics and time in service, the divorce after the divorce usually means lots of down time, and I’m no downer. (That’s a leadership statement, btw.)

As a career leader I worked for decades to turn an institution with a good front into an institution that could stand up to public scrutiny. Instead of piles of donated goods rotting on wooden pallets, I organized, built storage units, and decontaminated the material. I managed museum collections for a national leader, which flourished during my tenure before dipping and rising again.

As a youth leader I coached recreational sports for ten years, meeting families whose parents asked that their kids be my teams from soccer to indoor soccer to football, baseball, basketball, and wrestling. With two sons I coached teams concurrently each fall, winter, and spring. I don’t call it twenty years in coaching, but you may.

Since you’re still with me, you’ve reached the biggest leadership challenge of my life: Medical leadership. I’m writing a book on medical leadership after running through the maze of cancer, cancer detection, treatment, and the aftermath.

The short version of the book is try and be the sort of leader that fills the leadership void. I hear you ask, “But Leader Dave, aren’t the doctors the real leaders?”

And of course you are right, doctors are the main leaders for a phase of program, the part that finds cancer and kills cancer. That takes leadership, but they get overwhelmed like everyone else.

As a waiting room medical leader I engaged with my fellow travelers on the pathology trail. Without the proper input the waiting rooms felt like tombs for the not dead. Under my leadership things changed; at least appointment times changed for some folks who didn’t want their misery interrupted.

Memoir Writer

My work in progress book has had title changes, but the same thrust remains: don’t count on temporary leaders to guide you past health challenges, and doctors are temporary.

I use life experience noted above to illustrate the notion of permanent leadership. We are not our pathology, we are not our treatment, we are not broken and used up. Which brings me to my ultimate leadership place: Fitness Leader.

No matter your outcome, no matter your prognosis, you are more than any outside opinion of you. Prove it by finding something new to attempt and excel at; start a project and see it through to fruition. Do something only you can do, and do it better than you remember doing it the first time.

The key to being more than a survivor, a cancer survivor, but any survivor really, is moving beyond the haunting experience of surviving. Do that and you land on the space that asks, “Now what?”

Be honest, you’ve asked the same question, “Now What?”

One answer, and there’s more than one, is admitting the day might be hard, the day might suck, it might be harder for you and suck more than any other day, but that doesn’t take you off the hook.

YOU’VE STILL GOT TO DO SOMETHING WITH THE DAY EVEN IF IT SUCKS.

If that’s too hard, and it usually is, then you’re not ready to get on the path, your path. Instead, you’re still on your pathology. Take a look behind you before you decide on Path, Pathology, Or Get Out Of The Way. If there is someone behind you, they see a leader.

Be sure and represent.