First Lesson in Leadership

Beyond how I got there, most of the stories I took away from cheerleading were of a teenager’s life within that context. We did practice hard and we did take ourselves seriously … we even endured a very arduous, very hot week each summer at the American Cheerleading Association’s camp at Mercer University … but as I read the stories of the Lady Viking’s focus on strategy and discipline, I realize the day-to-day work of even a good cheerleading squad paled in comparison.

A teenager’s life in Taylor County, Georgia in the late 1960s, early 1970s is bound to yield a good story or two, though. I remembered one this morning as I considered the environment I want to create for a new business.

My fellow cheerleaders will be too kind at the reunion to remind me of it, but the truth is, I could be a hard-driving captain … as obnoxious as I was in 8th grade, only different. I must have really enjoyed my first taste of power. Our sponsor, Jeri Harris had made a career change, leaving a void in team leadership. I tried to fill the hole, awkwardly, of course. Today cheerleading captain! Tomorrow the world!!!

It was my senior year and the powerful Lady Vikings weren’t so powerful anymore. It had been a death of sorts, but we were too young to know how to grieve properly. Then again, do we ever learn how to do that? We come to realize, though, that from time to time our universe shifts abruptly. It just happens, and it happens to everybody. Knowing that helps you brace for it, but it may not prevent you from feeling shell-shocked.

That’s how I felt the first time I went to an away game and saw the bleachers nearly empty. My gut ached knowing I’d never get back something I had dearly loved and so carelessly taken for granted. Perhaps part of the rigor I wanted for the cheerleading squad stemmed from a desire to be taken as seriously as we once were. Whatever the reason, I was too immature to realize I had neither of the two qualities essential to those who are a big pain the rear: charm and authority. Therefore, after a week or two of making those who failed to fully straighten their arms run laps around the gym, the entire squad quit.

Now, that possibility had never occurred to me. I did what most teenage girls would do in a similar situation; I cried. I was in the bathroom at school and Jan Hobbs was delivering the bad news. She was annoyed, too, but luckily for me our friendship struck a little deeper than it did with others. She’d try to fix things, she said … and did. If only all the world’s abuses of power could be remedied so quickly.

Most people want to be masters of their universe, or at the very least king or queen of something. Acquiring the skills to make you fit for the position, though, takes time. I am very grateful to have received that first lesson in power … Abuse it and lose it! … in the arms of the Lady Vikings family.