Humility and Leadership

During my junior year in college, I attended a summer mission project in New Jersey.  The goal of the project was to provide college students opportunities to grow in their faith.  During the day we held down full-time jobs, the evenings were for faith formation and the weekends for community outreach and service.  For the first half of the summer, the adult staff trained us in preparation to assume their leadership positions for the second half of the summer and lead the project. 

I had served on a similar project the summer before and considered myself a veteran as compared to many of the students who were new to the experience.  This leadership position had been as the prayer coordinator.  Although It was a good experience, I felt it did not carry the weight, or esteem some of the other leadership positions had, such as a project leader or being on a leadership team.  I hoped this year to advance to a larger leadership position.

The summer began and one of my assigned duties was to make sure the refrigerator in the commons area was filled with soda.  This required me to walk down to the grocery store and carry back several cases of soda to fill the refrigerator.  Since I thought this task was below a person like myself who was on their second project, I did not put much enthusiasm into it.  The refrigerator would become nearly empty, some students would complain and then I would traipse off grumbling to get more soda.  This went on for several weeks.

The halfway mark came, and I waited anxiously to find out what my new leadership role would be.  I was hoping for project director or at least a position on the leadership team.  Imagine my surprise when the project director was given to a student with less experience than me.  I was further astonished when I didn’t even make it on the leadership team.  Although I was given a stronger role than the previous summer, it was nowhere near where I thought I belonged.

One day I was complaining to the other students about not getting what I thought I deserved.  I told them the only thing I had learned that summer was how to fill a refrigerator with soda.  That’s when one of the students exclaimed, “And you aren’t even very good at that!”  I did not realize people had been watching me and gaining an impression of my leadership ability through something as simple as making sure there was enough soda in the refrigerator.

At the end of the summer the adult project director took me for a walk, he told me that he had planned to have me as the project director, but after seeing my attitude he decided otherwise.  It was a hard lesson for me to learn.  I had lost an opportunity because of my unwillingness to be a good servant.

It reminds me of Luke 16:10 which says, “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.”   The little things are just as important as larger things.  If it be filling a refrigerator or other opportunities to serve, it reveals what is in our hearts and is noticed by others.  The simple tasks we are required to do today are preparing us for those larger tasks tomorrow.  If we don’t learn how to do the simple tasks, we won’t be ready for the larger ones.

Humility is one of our key Xaverian values that we will role-model and teach this school year.  It is a character trait that is important in servant leadership – which is the kind of leadership Malden Catholic embraces.  Please pray that our students will grow in humility this school year.