Any dog will become a leader, unless another is effective in the role. If you don’t want to be dragged around, you’ve got to make the decision to be the top dog! But it’s not always going to be easy. I’ve identified 3 specific challenges so far here. Taking on the role of a leader can be tough….

(Yes, I am now a dog owner. And learning life lessons from a tiny black miniature schnauzer.)

Puppy Like…

This is Poppy. She’s just around 9 weeks old here. And yes, her super-power is cuteness… However, her current thing is to wee or poo inside and nibble or bite almost anything that comes near her. For me, this perfectly normal dog behaviour takes Poppy away from the cuteness and into another realm. I can’t subtitle this “Puppy Love” yet…because I’ve been dealing with a lot of the wees and poos…

Our current thing is to take this puppy called Poppy outside into the icy-cold garden every hour in the hope of cleaning up less wee and poo from inside. Smell what I smell. Hear me yawn. Feel my pain. Hands up who knew this would happen and did not warn me…! (As my niece recently recalled as she watched her dog pull the stuffing from a treasured cushion: “Get a dog” they said. “It will be so much fun” they said.)

In desperation, I have been devouring dog-training books by the “Dog Whisperer”, Cesar Millan and lapping up YouTube videos on the issues. There’s plenty I need to be doing to work towards having “The Perfect Puppy”.

The “Dog Whisperer” has lead me to reconsider my new dog as a pack animal…and my new position as Top Dog. As a pack animal, our little dog needs a leader to show her how to fit into our pack. Otherwise, according to Cesar, the dog will feel obliged to become the leader and run the show. Heaven forbid!

So the plan is that I will now become a leadership model of calm-assertiveness. I will provide rules, boundaries and limitations:

Puppy, this is where you will poo.

Puppy, this is what you may chew.

Puppy, your teeth are making an imprint on my hand, please refrain.

Natural Born Leader

“God will make you the head, not the tail; you’ll always be the top dog, never the bottom dog, as you obediently listen to and diligently keep the commands of God, your God, that I am commanding you today.” Deuteronomy 28 Message

Did you see that, Poppy? The bible is telling my I’m the top dog!

I like the idea of being a leader. And from scripture, leadership appears to be God-ordained, right? I’d love to exert influence where I may… without even a hint of coercion or bribery with dog treats…

…or sweets….

As a mother as well as a dog owner, I’d love to know I have a positive impact on my dear “little” ones to lead them in a direction they should go. Maybe, if I could master this whole idea of “calm-assertive leadership”, I could even have influence and make an impact beyond these four walls.

There are a few problems I can already foresee with my leadership though:

Problem/Challenge 1:

To be a leader, you need followers.

This is so unfair, right?!

Frankly, many times of late, all my followers seem to be either non-existent or lagging behind me with their actions…

• Waiting in the garden for our puppy to do a wee. Checking my watch every 30 seconds. Counting out the minutes since she last went. Why hasn’t she pooed today? Am I doing something wrong here?
• Waiting at the door for my 9 year old daughter.  She really is going to be late for her swimming lesson now. What on earth is she doing up those stairs anyway? How can anything take anyone this long?
• Waiting for my teenage daughters to get ready to go out (usually since half an hour ago)…
• Waiting in the traffic jam for the cars in front of me to move. (Sadly, London traffic and the spirit of Lewis Hamilton within do not mix.)

  

Do you feel my pain? Sometimes, I reckon for all of us it’s…

• Waiting on the sideline to be picked.
• Waiting in the wings for a turn which never seems to come.
• Waiting for a prayer to be answered…

Waiting. Always waiting. And for this, we need patience, right?

I wonder if perhaps my patience is waiting in the wings to go on.

Sometimes it seems that waiting has become my new all-consuming, stress-inducing occupation.

Looking around me, I have an increasing suspicion that no-one is really following me; instead I am right in the middle of the crowd…Which leads me to:

Problem/Challenge 2:

To have followers, you must be a leader worth following…

Be a leader like Jesus, for example…

For Jesus, getting people to follow him seems to come naturally. “Come, Follow me,” He says. And they leave everything behind and follow Him. That’s some kind of magnetic character!

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers…casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4: 18-20, NIV)

I don’t know how you roll, but looking at my record of followers, its obvious I’ve not yet attained Christ-like leadership qualities. The bible sets the vision of us Christians becoming more mature and Christ-like (Ephesians 4:12-13, NIV).

But are you “attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” yet? No? Me neither. For me too, wherever I go, there I am; still a work in progress and in the process of becoming that character that God needs me to be.

And yet…

Problem/Challenge 3:

You are graced to be a leader, and so am I.

Why? Because, you are influencing others, whether you like it or not.

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another” John C. Maxwell.

A good friend of mine reckons that because we are Christians, people are watching us, judging. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.  Nor can I say whether my dog is judging me, but I do know she’s watching, always watching…

What I can say is this:

There is a definitely a ripple effect of each of our actions. Whether other people know it or not, I am influencing them…

and they are influencing me. Who will be most influential? Who will be the best influence?

If I want to give good influence, I guess it would be helpful to consider myself a leader, whether anyone is following me or not, and lead by example.

How are you leading by example?

I’m convinced that leading by example is the right path for me to take.

In fact, that’s an idea, I’m going to set the example to Poppy right now and go and wee outside in the garden.