One of the things I look forward to as a parent is raising Ethan in the context of a leadership culture. Leadership is important to us; we’re both leaders. While we don’t yet know what gifts God has given him (and others God may develop in him in the future), we certainly want to provide an atmosphere where God can grow him to be a leader in whatever areas he discovers his giftedness.
In the Scriptures, particularly with the leaders in the Old Testament, there are so many examples of children following in the footsteps of their parents. Often when the parent was a bad leader, the child was also a bad leader, and vice versa. There were exceptions, of course, but they seem to be few and far between. The challenge for us is to provide the best environment we can so that Ethan will be an effective, godly leader.
Role Models
Everybody needs good role models. As parents, we’ll automatically be role models for Ethan, and that will include modeling leadership. We’ll also ensure that he is exposed to other good leaders so that he can learn from them, too. Having good role models is essential for learning leadership!
Opportunities to Lead
Learning leadership from others is necessary, but it’s not enough. You can’t develop leadership without actually leading. IOW, leadership skills are best developed on the job, putting them into practice. That means we’ll need to give Ethan opportunities to lead as he grows and matures (although we’re not exactly sure what that will look like yet).
Again, we don’t know what God has in store for Ethan, but everyone, regardless of giftedness, can benefit from a strong leadership culture. Everyone leads in some capacity — in school, in the workplace, as a parent, or any number of other contexts. May God help us to take our task of providing a leadership culture for Ethan to heart!
Well, this is part of a series of posts written in preparation for bringing Ethan home. Previously, we’ve written about shaping a God-centered culture, a learning culture, and a high AQ culture.