Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:46-47, NRSVCE)
It’s not just children who learn from what they see.
Steve, the best boss I ever had, died about this time a year ago. He had replaced someone, now long dead, who thought the best way to run a newsroom was to pit people against each other so that we’d all always be on edge and competitive. Steve expected excellence too, but he fostered it in a different way. He said a hearty hello whether you came in early or late. He always asked how your vacation was, and how things went at your dental appointment the day before. He let out a big “BAM!” any time someone scored a big interview or wrote a stellar headline. He was the first true example of servant leadership I ever saw. I wanted to be like Steve. I would have taken a bullet for him, and in some ways I did on more than one occasion.
Years later, I worked only incidentally with a federal 
government executive. He lives 700 miles away, and was my boss’s-boss’s-boss’s-boss. I doubt he remembers me or my name. But the handful of times I saw him, his face broke into a smile the second he encountered anyone in the hall or a meeting room, regardless of whether the person’s latest rating was outstanding or he or she was on a personal improvement plan. He’d rush over to shake your hand and ask how you were doing. And in those few seconds together, you felt valued by him… and the organization. Small wonder he’s continued to advance, though I think he’d be doing the same thing regardless of his position. I learned the value of a smile and of acknowledgment from him.
I don’t know anything about the interior faith life of either of these men. But I do know that if I interact in a Christlike way with people I find difficult to love, they are among the examples Jesus put in my life to learn from.
Hi Melanie!
Your post resonated with me. I have had both kinds of bosses you describe here: the “patriarch type” who likes a contentious atmosphere and the type who understands that one person’s accomplishments on a true team are accomplishments for the whole team. It reminds me of this, by John Donne:
No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s
or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
Wendy