These days, I’m on a bit of a Disney kick, and not because of the politics, or the news. It’s not because of the latest and greatest Marvel or Star Wars shows on Disney’s streaming service, although that is inching closer to being the reason, but it’s because I’m the dad of two young boys, and cartoons have a way of somehow simplifying the questions that hound me as one of their parents. For example, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to coach my boys about how to respond to a compliment or a criticism. As I reflect on this, I’m driven to think about how I respond to such a thing. I believe that doing so with grace, dignity and the right amount of humility is important – that a top-notch leader ought to mirror the attributes of “level 5 leadership” that Jim Collins writes about in his book, “From Good to Great”, and that servant leadership is defined by its root in humility.
In “Finding Nemo”, there’s a wonderful clip featuring seagulls and their mad rush for food. Interpreted for the comedic audience, the call of the gull is “Mine…Mine…MINE!” as they rush forward scooping up indiscriminately every piece of food they can find. See it here:
The gulls actions seems to be driven less by need, and more by self-importance and entitlement. They’ll eat anything and everything because they lay claim to everything. It’s pitiable. I sure don’t want to be “that guy”. I loathe self-importance, and sadly, (confession time) I think part of the reason I loathe it is that it’s weakness I see in myself. I’m quick to identify it in others because I hate when I see it in myself. I’ve heard a lesson about this before. Something about being quick to “remove the plank from our own eye” before pointing out the speck in our neighbor’s”, right?
So, what will I coach my boys? I’ll certainly need to be aware of the great risk in the “do as I say and not as I do” dilemma. I’ll remind them that there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, between pride because of something that we’ve accomplished, and pride that boasts in our accomplishments; that hard work with hard-won results, care for others, and gratitude are the heart of preventing pride and self-importance.
LSV makes this lesson so much easier. Look no further than the heart of Pennsylvania’s agriculture industry to see why self-importance is so detestable. While I enjoy my glass of local wine, I remember what Amy Scorsone says it took to make those grapes grow – legitimately poor soil, tremendous risk, and multiple generations of sweat equity by the Zimmerman family. While we chow down over a meal of pasta and sauce, we can think about the stewardship of five generations of Furmans and Geises who harvested the tomatoes and canned the sauce. When I think about criticism, I can think about the poultry farmer’s plight of having a smelly henhouse that upsets the neighbors, while the price of eggs go up to $9.00 per case because of the Avian flu. I can think about the local dairy farmer or cheesemaker, left at the mercy of insufficient milk processors, causing them to watch their labor turn into dumped-out milk. I can think of all these things, and I can point to our neighbors and say, in our Valley, there’s no room for the attitude of the seagulls, no room for self-importance, and no room for ingratitude because our farming neighbors make possible the lifestyle we lead.
Special thanks to our farmers (especially Charlie Benner, LSV Ag Day planner-extraordinaire), our LSV hosts and speakers (GSVCC Business of the Roaring 2020's winner BrightFarms, Furmano's, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Cheryl Cook, PennDairy, Shade Mountain Winery, and Mabarbil Farms), and our sponsors (Growmark FS, Fulton Bank, and program day sponsor Kreamer Feed), who showcased the local agriculture industry to the LSV Class of 2022. May the newly minted “best class ever” join me in pointing to our neighbors for lessons in leadership, in gratitude, and in humility.
Ag Day Leadership Lesson: There's No Room for "Mine, Mine"
