Leadership can be hard to define

Greetings, Minnesota American Legion Family. I hope you all had an enjoyable Halloween and are now looking forward to seeing family and friends during Thanksgiving.

I’d like to thank all of you who came to Dee Dee Buckley’s celebration of life and even those of you who could not attend for many and varied personal reasons and yet had good thoughts in you for Dee Dee. Thank you all for your love and support. I truly do appreciate you all, my Minnesota American Legion Family.

So, the subject of this month’s column is … leadership!

Yes, I know that the dictionary has a definition in it. But do we know what it is? I know that we know what bad leadership is, as that becomes evident over time, but do we know what good leadership is? I can cite many examples of good leadership, Dee Dee Buckley being one of them. You all know plenty of examples in your own lives and even down through history.

I look to the prior leaders of the American Legion Family for my inspiration and as examples to follow. The one thing that we must remember is that our leaders are human and as humans we make mistakes. Making a mistake isn’t so bad, as long as we take responsibility for the mistakes that we make and endeavor to not repeat those mistakes.

So, accountability of self and to the membership is a primary tenet of good leadership.

The next indicator of good leadership is follow-through.

It’s simple, really. If you say that you are going to do it, just do it. Otherwise, don’t make the commitment to do something.

My dad, from whom I get my SAL eligibility, always used to say, “If you are going to take on a job, do it to the best of your abilities and then you have no worries.”

Dee Dee used to say that very same thing. Well, actually, all of my mentors have made that same point one way or another to me. So, to paraphrase a Supreme Court justice, “It’s hard to define but you’ll know it when you see it.” When it comes to leadership, that’s the way it is.

I’ll leave you with another quote (borrowed from Paul Hassing): “May you be proud of the work you do, the person you are, and the difference you make!”

With a new year, I have a new theme. SAL commanders serve two years now, not one. My second-year theme is “Stepping Up For Veterans.”

Yours in service,

John Weiss of St Paul Arcade-Phalen Squadron 577 is the commander of the Detachment of Minnesota for the Sons of The American Legion. His theme is “Stepping Up For Veterans.”