by Michael Brumfield

Created on: April 28, 2008

A good leader in my mind is defined as someone who would never ask you to do something that they would be unwilling to do themselves. I was in the United States Air Force and had my fair share of good and not so good leaders. Some let the power of knowing that they were in charge go to their heads and didn't bother to think what they would do if they had a leader like themselves to take orders from. I had others who went out of their way to show that other than their rank and position they were no different than the rest of us.

I took a serious look at the leaders that I had served under when I was told that I was to become my class leader and decided that I would be the type of leader from the later group.

Every class in tech school had a list of chores to do around the schoolhouse and as the class was there longer the duties became worse. We had become the most senior class and that made me the senior class leader and our duty was to clean the bathrooms for the entire building. I had watched as the leader of every class before me sat by barking out orders to the rest of their classmates as they did nothing themselves.

I had decided that that was not the way I would want to be treated if I didn't happen to be the class leader and instead lead by example. No matter what the duty for that week was I chose the worst job and took it on myself. When it was our turn to mop floors I did all of the clean up after everything had been used. When it was our turn to clean offices I did the trash detail and when it was our turn to clean the bathrooms I scrubbed the toilets. I didn't do this to receive praise from the instructors or to curry favor with my classmates although both of those things happened. I did them because in my mind that is what a leader is and does.

A leader is the man who will do the job that no one else is willing to do because it needs to be done. A leader is a person who does that job not only while not complaining but also with a smile on their face while they do it. I'm not saying that I'm a great leader like some people are but I'm a good leader in that my idea of a leader is based on personal experience.

Learn more about this author, Michael Brumfield.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.