I went to an all-girls Catholic high school (insert joke here).  Now whatever that image may bring up for you, there is one moment of clarity that I’d like to share.  It was in a class called “Christian Leadership” taught by a well-loved teacher we called ‘Mr. P’.  Mr. P was a remnant of the hippie movement… even by the time he got to teach us, we all knew he had done drugs and slept in his van conversion at some point in his life.  But that left him with an indelible “we can do anything… even change the world!” kind of attitude that was infectious.

I don’t even know if Mr. P was Christian or Catholic, but he taught this class.  It was mostly a class about getting to know ourselves and how we could interact with the world with what skills and knowledge we happened to have at the moment.

(Now a sidenote on who I am, the receiver of all this info: I was super shy.  Back then, I was that kid that no one talked to.  So I often sang to myself or drew in the squares on my uniform skirt to stave off the loneliness; but that just made me ‘weirder’ to everyone else.  It was a killer cycle.)

Mr. P brought into class one day his interpretation of “Leadership”.  I believe it was based off of Martin Evan’s Path-Goal Theory of leadership, which divided people into 4 kinds of leaders.  (Insert technical talk here.)  But Mr. P put it into terms we -as high schoolers- could understand.  He said there were:

-Visionary Leaders (the ones with imagination enough to see a whole new big picture) E.g. Dalai Lama

-Charismatic Leaders (the ones who could rally the group and get everyone excited to be part of the big picture) E.g. JFK

-Detail Leaders (the ones you could count on who would see the finer details and make sure that we dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s) E.g. Thomas Jefferson

-Example Leaders (the ones who knew the big picture, but got down and dirty with the group to show everyone how it’s done) E.g. MLK

-Healer Leaders (the ones who checked in with each individual to make sure they felt important and supported) E.g. Mother Theresa

(BTW: I’m pulling these examples out of my butt, but you get the picture.)

He then closed that class with how everyone had a little of one of those leaders inside of them.   How Jesus was a leader but he had many other leaders to help him (it was a Catholic school after all).  And as long as you choose to participate, you will invoke one of those leadership styles in your interaction with others.

In any case, my shy and timid high schooler-self sat in that class and was inspired for one of those times in high school when things click.  Not all of those leadership styles seemed overwhelmingly daunting.  People are always screaming at kids to ‘be a leader! Stop being a follower!’  It was nice to simply hear, “Participate,” and to see where you could grow from there.  I felt that I ‘could’ be brave, and that was a lot for me at 16 years old.

Mr. P had power and he willed me to grow.  I don’t know where he is now, but I hold him deep in my heart…