Send in the clowns

Leadership:  it's something that a lot of folks have encouraged in me during my lifetime and being the soul I am, I have often plunged in head first.

I look at the teenaged dreams I espoused in this piece from a local paper and I laugh.  I had no clue of reality, just escape.  Never accomplished a single thing enumerated in this article.

As time went on and I thought I became wiser, I found myself in other leadership positions, most notably with a then-prominent volunteer service organization.  There was a buzz, and I was being encouraged to take on more and more responsibility at local, state, and national levels of the group.  I felt free to exercise the brain that God had given me and felt that while I had no aspirations, I enjoyed the work and found a definite niche.

But then the circus came to town, and those who had originally supported my growth came to resent it.  The hatchets came out, and I was politically stonewalled by my supposed best friends.  Call that career over.  Amazingly, however, everything I was blackballed for on the state level is now standard procedure.  Makes you wonder.........

Next incarnation, I was a church leader, in charge of all education programs for a large local congregation.  I promised and delivered changes, and devoted way too many hours a week to a poorly-paid position.  I sought to educate parents as well as children, and strove to build a strong foundation for the young people coming of age in the church.  I built a strong outside network of support systems and learning opportunities for myself and my volunteers, and we marched on, hearts for Jesus, minds for leadership.

But that clown car came around once more.  This time I was resented for being too strong a leader, for asking for personal, spiritual commitment from those who were volunteering to guide the children of the congregation.  Who the dickens did I think I was to put in curriculum that actually had something to do with Jesus rather than social work?  The clown car drove in, the knives came out, and I was relieved of another job.  But one more thing - some of the core programming developed in my days on staff there are still in place.  I'm shaking my head in wonder again.

Fast forward once again.  I find responsibility for scraping what could be a large event thrust upon me because I simply asked a question.  I can handle events; I've done them on a national as well as state and local level.  I assembled a committee of volunteers, I wrote press releases, booked a venue, chose a menu, culled the 500-plus names of potential invitees together and sent out invitations.  A few committee members were active in specific roles they chose for themselves, and I worked even harder not to criticize - an important thing when working with volunteers.

The date for the event came, and of course there were bumps and bruises to cope with that day as final pieces tied together in the venue.  I rounded up extra assistance for myself from family members who were in attendance, and opened the doors on time.  I never saw a committee disappear as quickly as that one did that night.  The only time I saw one of them was when she was at the podium chiding me for not being up there with her - I'm sorry, a specially-invited guest had just arrived and I felt an obligation - and then again when this committee member finished taking responsibility for the evening's successes and congratulated me on having the cutest photos of myself posted on Facebook.  Later, I was chided for not "mingling".  My response was that I didn't see anyone else getting a count together in order to pay the caterer or dealing with other on-the-spot issues.  Beep-beep came the clown car one more time.

Will I ever do it again?  No good deed goes unpunished.  No.  Will I ever step into a full-fledged leadership role again, using what I feel are the God-given gifts and talents given me?  No, thank you.  I'm tired of being mowed down by the clown car.

Now I work hard to wait to be asked to participate in things, and then strive to the utmost not to overstep what is required of me.  It makes life a lot easier that way.

Is this just a piece about poor, pitiful me?  No.  I hope that it's a lesson that leadership has its brilliant upside and a dirty, slimy fall down the other side of the hill.  I hope that it's a lesson to never get so wrapped up in your work that you can't hear the clown car coming when someone decides a change is wanted.  I hope that I can encourage dedication without total self-sacrifice.

But wait a minute?  Isn't that an oxymoron?

The clowns are coming...........