Leadership Lessons From My Dad
Yesterday, on Father’s Day, I read an article about the beginnings of Father’s Day as a national holiday. Did you know President Richard Nixon signed the legislation making it a permanent national observance in 1972? I was nine years old in 1972 and at that age where my dad was invincible. As I read I began to reflect on my father and why I am so thankful for the great relationship I had with my dad. My dad was one of those who if you brought home straight A’s and one “A-” he wanted to know why the “A-”and how were we going to make it an “A”.
As tough as that sounds, I needed that tough love and I thrived on it. My dad taught me not to settle. He also taught me about continuous improvement. Dad was teaching me about going from good to great long before Jim Collins made it a best selling book title in 2001. With this toughness, dad also coached me on being a person of integrity and doing what I say I am going to do.
My dad was also a perfectionist. I learned from watching him that perfection does get in the way of progress or completion. Luckily I did not get that part of dad’s DNA. It would take him so long to get something done because he had to make it perfect. My watching him, learning from him, and arguing about getting things done helped me become being comfortable with the messiness of innovation.
As I reflected on this it reminded me of J. R. R. Tolkien being a perfectionist. When getting feedback from the Inklings, he would many times start a manuscript completely over. This made his writing extremely slow and he left many unfinished works when he died. Now, make no mistake, Tolkien was extremely successful and significant. But, just like with my dad, perfection got in the way of progress and completion. I love Tolkien’s take on this in Leaf By Niggle. I wrote about this in Using Tolkien’s Leaf By Niggle As A Guide To Living With Significance.
Our dads are unique human beings. Our dads are not perfect. My dad was not perfect. However, my dad served as an incredible role model that I look to every day. He modeled for me how to be a great dad and I hope my son has learned from my positive qualities and imperfections like I did from my dad.
Byron's Babbles 
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