I’m going to date myself now, but the fall of 1990 marked the start of my sophomore year of high school and the opening of a new high school in my district which I was fortunate to attend. The school, built on a reclaimed chunk of the Everglades, was ironically named Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after a woman who spent most of her 108 years of life fighting to preserve the river of grass.

As the school had no senior class its first year, in just one summer I’d gone from a freshman at the bottom of the pecking order to second-in-seniority status. Only band geeks current and former will appreciate this, but I have the honor of having my name enshrined forever (scroll waaaaaaay down…) as the first drum major of the Marching Eagles.

So at the age of 15 I was placed in a position of “authority” over my peers, some of whom were older than I was. Who was I to tell them to stand at attention, or let them know that the bells of their instruments weren’t polished enough? When I think about leadership, and the challenges of becoming an administrator at age 29, I often smile at how some of the lessons I learned as a student leader carry over into my professional life.

• Use a lot of “we.” Minimize “you.” It gives people the sense that you’re in it with them.
• Push ups are not an effective motivator.
• Even if you think you know the answer, ask people what they think. “Hey – from where you’re standing, does this line look straight?”
• Once you pull rank on someone, you’ve changed the dynamic of the relationship for good.
• The people doing the real work can lose their motivation after a long, hard practice because they can’t see how their small part fits into the big picture. But show them the video from atop the press box and they suddenly realize how all the small parts fit together.
• You can stand on the podium conducting all afternoon, but if the guys in the drum line — the ones who keep the pulse for the entire group — don’t trust you, you’re just a guy in a funny looking costume flapping his arms.
• Laugh at yourself often and admit when you screw up.
• You can only be the best when everyone — everyone — stays in step and hits their mark on time.
• Everyone may not be doing exactly the same thing — some are marking time, some are marching double-time — but everything contributes to the formation.
• Trust is everything. Sometimes you have to march backwards and you can’t see where you’re going.

If nothing else, I think being a student leader gave me some great experience and taught me that it is much more important to have power with people rather than power over people. And heading back to work this week and seeing the band practicing in the triple-digit heat made me think of my own high school experience.

Images: “Blue Devils at 2005 DCI World Championships” by Scutter “DSC_1425” by traveller2020