Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Jerry Scott. We hope you enjoy Jerry’s wisdom and perspective.
When you have one child and that child is a daughter, her wedding day is the ultimate day of days. It was for me one of life’s most important opportunities to be a stand up guy in a series of moments stretching back 22 years since she was born.
Being a stand up guy that day meant keeping things cool and light. Not crying while I walked her down the aisle because she might have lost it and streaked all that careful beautification. And offering a modestly respectable Father of the Bride’s toast at the reception as you can see for yourself in the wedding reception video. Simple things really, not as hard as teaching her how to drive or helping decide when she could start dating, or replacing her stolen car stereo and the broken window in her high school Camaro.
I met my daughter for the first time on a cold winter’s morning in a delivery room where, having emerged and been cleaned up a bit, she was placed in my arms. I walked around the room holding her face inches from mine and looked deep into her eyes. She wasn’t crying or sleeping or squirming. She simply looked quietly and without blinking back into my eyes as I was struck with the realization that I had found my life’s purpose at last.
You see the men in my family tree, going back as far as I could see, were not stand up guys. Their demons and afflictions got the better of them, and they left a trail of destruction and disappointment in their wake. However, something about looking into my daughter’s eyes, her soul perhaps, for the first time told me she was here to save me and my salvation was the quest to be a stand up guy for her.
One night months ago Janet came home late from school. When she works late it’s an opportunity for me to flip channels and watch anything I want. American Ninja Warriors, documentaries, and movies she could do without. On this particular night she came through the door, took one look at me, and immediately registered concern because my cheeks were wet from a few stray tears. Not sobbing tears, but leaking tears like when you laugh too hard or something moves you like the end of a good movie. Her concern lasted one split second until she saw what I was watching. The end of the movie Armageddon again for maybe the 50th time was on the screen.
Now I love a good rogue with a heart of gold saves the world kind of movie. But there is a scene at the end of this one that really gets me. Harry Stamper is on a video screen explaining to his daughter Grace that he has to break his promise to return home. He has to stay behind and detonate the nuclear bomb to destroy the asteroid and save her and all of humanity. Then she says what moves me every time. “I love you so much and I am so proud of you.”
There is for me no higher calling than to live my life in a way that makes my daughter proud of me. Perhaps another simple thing but it has guided my life and decisions since she was born that cold January night and will continue to guide me until I take my last breath. Whether that is tonight or 40 years from now, I will die in a state of grace if I know I have broken a multi-generational pattern of dysfunction without passing it on to her and that I have earned the right to be called Dad. Biology makes you a father. The innocence of a child makes you a daddy. Being a stand up guy makes you a Dad.
To me, being a Dad first and foremost is about setting an example with my own behavior and choices. Then it’s about kindness, laughter, being there through thick and thin, being cool under pressure, taking care of things, being prepared and having the capacity to defend my family, and always having high expectations mixed with love and support. As I said at her wedding reception, it’s about her knowing I will always have her back as she ventures out to create a great life.
What’s The Risk?
There is a corollary in organizational leadership, I believe. All of these qualities and behaviors apply to the relationship between a leader and those they are responsible for. Most want to like, respect, and trust their leaders. Most expect them to conduct themselves with the highest level of integrity and personal accountability. Most expect them to achieve at a high level, continuously improve, and always strive to learn and be more effective.
I hope the beautiful and talented people I am responsible for end up feeling this way about me. I hope I inspire them in some small way by my personal example in order to allow their highest potential to unfold knowing that I have their best interest at heart and that I will always be there for them. There is, it seems to me, no higher calling at work as well.
This content was written and shared by guest blogger, Jerry Scott. Connect with Jerry on LinkedIn and Twitter.
