“Lead by example” is a saying I’ve heard for as long as I can remember. If you are like me, the oldest sibling, you were asked to lead by example before you were ready to be a leader.
Older siblings stand in solidarity when we say, “We didn’t sign up for this.”
Taking the lead is not always something we have a choice in doing. Some of us are born into it, others forced, and then there are the ones who step out by choice to take the lead.
As we grow up, we are given the opportunity to lead in all areas of our life. The motivation to be a leader can be influenced by many factors from our upbringing. If your parents were more passive, you may be more of a “go with the flow” type. If your parents were more assertive, you may be more of a “call the shots” type.
If you come from a family like mine, you may have a healthy mix of both.
Whether you consider yourself a passive or assertive leader, the influence you have goes far beyond what you can possibly imagine. Today, I’m speaking from a parent perspective. Though I do believe that the concept of “leading by example” can apply to all of us, parents or not.
You Are Influential
Newsflash, you are influential. In your day to day life, you are leading by example in all that you do. As a parent, your children are watching your every move. As a business owner, your employees are watching too. Unless you live underneath a rock, your words and actions are being observed by everyone around you.
This starts at an early age. I’ve got plenty of stories working in the nursery at church, where I’ll have a baby dropped off, all smiles and rainbows. The next child comes in with a bad attitude, crying in desperation for their mother to return. Without fail, the loudest in the room is typically the one that carries the most influence. Before you know it, all the babies in the nursery are crying, half of them not even knowing why they are doing it!
In order to lead by example, you must familiarize yourself with the queues.
I’ve seen this throughout my parenting journey on more than one occasion. There was a time where my daughter had found a young girl who shared a vlog on YouTube. The girl may have only been a couple years older than my daughter at the time, and she’d share videos of her day to day. One day after school, my daughter had asked to watched some of her channel while I was making dinner. From the other room, I overheard the child talking terribly about herself in the video. Without making much of a reaction, I walked in and asked if I could join her on the couch.
There, the young girl had a photo on the screen of herself at the age my daughter was. She was picking apart her smile and the way her braces made her look “stupid”. She talked about her hair and how she’d wished it was different.
I quickly recalled recent behavior from my child, that emulated the behavior of this girl. Despite my efforts to affirm and encourage, she was expressing feelings of self loathing and unhappiness with the way she looked.
I’m so grateful that I allowed her to watch this YouTuber that day. Not because I approved of the way she was speaking about herself, but it let me in on the kind of influences my daughter was being drawn to at the time. It opened up a constructive discussion about how we talk about ourselves. I was able to use the experience as a teaching moment, and give her insight into how damaging that kind of influence could be on her life.
As parents, we are up against so many factors from the outside. School, sports, extracurriculars, social media, and people outside of our homes are setting examples for our children everyday. We can choose to be fearful of all that they are exposed to, or we can choose to be more involved.
Take the Lead
When it comes to leading by example, we have to recognize that fear is visible. As much as we want to hide our fear, it is not an easy emotion to disguise. I’ve always believed children to be more aware than we give them credit for. Similar to animals and how they are able to sense our emotions, I believe children are even greater at doing this.
When we are leading from a place of fear, there is a timidness that oozes out into our behavior. We may come off as nervous, anxious, or overreactive. I’ve noticed that when I expose my fears early on, I get a better grip on how to problem solve through them.
For example, my daughter started her school career in public school. From kindergarten, I’d had a gut feeling that I didn’t want her to be in the public school system. I grew up in public school, I had many friends with kids in public school, and initially didn’t know why I’d had so much fear around the idea. I’d never known any other way to do it.
I continued to battle with this, especially when I would notice the ways she seemed to be easily influenced by the people she was interacting with during the school day. I’d toyed with the idea of home school and private school, though I’d be met with my need to work full time or high tuition costs. The leader inside of me told me not to give up.
As she finished out her 3rd grade year, I’d had many conversations, prayed for miracles, and thought through just about every option I could find. That summer, I put all my attention to taking the lead on this issue. One thing led to another and I’d found myself applying for the Step Up Scholarship (offered to all families in Florida) and an opening at a local private school. Still, there was no guarantee that BOTH doors would open to us, though I’d warned her that if they did, we were going to jump on the opportunity.
Two weeks before school was supposed to start, we got the acceptance letter for the scholarship and the invite to attend the school. Though I had push back and surprised reactions from my family about taking her out of a “good school”, I knew that I was making the right call.
Within two weeks of school starting, I’d had full by in from both my daughter and our family members that I’d made the right choice.
Sometimes when we are put in a position to take the lead, we have to trust that we are the ones for the job. Even if the position seems daunting or the task seems steep, we must find the inner strength to lead.
Lead with Love
Whether the example you lead is passive, assertive, positive, or negative, you are setting examples for the people around you every day. The people in your home, the driver in the car next to you on the highway, your coworkers, and every person in between.
When you recognize that people are watching you, you begin to act differently. At first, you may try to be someone that you deep down are not. Carrying a front can get very heavy.
Once you’ve accepted your position of influence and realize that you are leading by example in every aspect of your life, leading from a place of love becomes more critical. This is no easy feat, and it comes with lots of unpacking. We may have to go to the drawing board on a regular basis to analyze what is and isn’t working.
Hopefully, for the sake of being good parents and strong influences for our children, we aren’t concerned with the opinions of everybody, like the young YouTuber who thought tearing herself a part was working..
My hope is that you are focused on leading by a loving example, one that stems from a deep well of love that you first offer to yourself. Loving ourselves looks like trusting our gut, making changes to better our lives, and addressing the fears that haunt us.
The strongest leaders I know are firm, gentle, and kind. There is no perfect path, no arrival, nor finish line. Leading by example is a marathon of sorts, one that you can be training for till the end of time.
Makenna Curtis
Faith, Family, & Entertainment Writer
Local Pulse Pensacola
