The Walk Before the Words

The Shoes Tell a Story

I have been thinking about something as simple as putting on my shoes and going for a walk....

If and when I start walking, my children often join me.

I do not have to deliver a presentation explaining the projected return on a family stroll.

I do not need a sign-up sheet, an attendance policy, or a motivational speech with a mountain in the background.

They see me moving and want to come along.

That gets my attention because it says something about a relationship before I say anything about a destination. They know me. They have a history with me. Walking with Dad can be something they choose.

Other people’s children might stay where they are unless they are invited. That makes sense. They do not have the same relationship with me. My status as a father does not make me the regional director of children.

Even my own children can have a good reason to stay behind. Sometimes somebody is tired, occupied, or simply uninterested in the walk.

I do not need to turn an ordinary preference into a diagnosis of our relationship. Still, the observation gives me a useful question: what about my life makes people want to walk with me?

It reaches past parenting. It reaches the way I work with clients, the way I approach other leaders, and the way I respond when someone has an idea different from mine.

I can hold a position that gives me the responsibility to make decisions. But what do people experience when I use that responsibility? Do they receive clarity and support? Do they have room to think? Do they trust me enough to tell me something I would rather not hear?

Those questions are harder than asking whether people followed an instruction. They bring me into the difference between having authority and earning influence—and into the kind of leader I am still learning to become.

The Title Has a Job to Do

Authority gives a person legitimate responsibility and decision rights within a role. A parent needs to establish boundaries. A business needs someone accountable for commitments, resources, and standards. A team needs to know who can decide what.

Influence grows through what people experience of our character, competence, consistency, and care. It helps explain why they seek our perspective or commit to a shared purpose beyond the minimum requirement.

John Maxwell’s leadership framework distinguishes the position a person holds from the relationships and development that can grow beyond it. I find that distinction useful because a title can establish a role before trust has had time to develop.

The role still matters. If a child is about to step into danger, I need to give a clear instruction. I do not need to schedule a collaborative discovery session about whether the approaching vehicle supports their personal vision.

In business, a safety rule or a commitment to handle money honestly cannot depend on whether everyone finds it inspiring that morning.

The question is how I carry that authority in the ordinary work between urgent moments. Am I explaining expectations, honoring limits, and listening to what people know? Or am I expecting the title to cover for unclear thinking and an unwillingness to be questioned?

A respected leader can still give a direct request.

A trusted team can still need a clear plan.

Nobody should have to read my mind to prove they believe in me.

Jesus Did Not Need to Prove He Was Important

In Matthew 20, a request for honored positions among Jesus’ followers brings the question of greatness into the open. Jesus points to rulers who dominate others, then teaches a different use of leadership:

“Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,”

He grounds that instruction in His own mission to serve and give His life. The passage confronts ambition that treats other people as a way to establish the leader’s importance.

John 13 gives that teaching a physical expression. Jesus washes His disciples’ feet while still identifying Himself as their Teacher and Lord. His service expresses how He uses His authority. He then calls them to follow His example in serving one another.

That challenges the part of me that would like leadership to come with fewer inconvenient needs. Someone needs an explanation. Someone needs time. Someone has discovered a problem that does not fit neatly into the plan I already liked.

Serving them may mean doing difficult work. It may also mean teaching them how to do that work, securing the resources they need, or removing a problem I have created.

I cannot build mature leaders if I treat every need for development as an interruption to the important business of being their leader.

And I cannot use service as another way to collect loyalty. Helping someone does not purchase permanent agreement. I want to offer care without keeping a private invoice for the admiration I think should follow.

The towel is an uncomfortable leadership accessory for an ego that was hoping for a crown.

But it asks a practical question: what can I do with the responsibility I have that will help the people entrusted to my care?

That question can change a meeting. It can change a response to a mistake. It can change what my family experiences when I arrive home with a head full of problems and the temptation to make everyone else feel the weight.

A Voice They Have Come to Know

John 10:4 describes the shepherd going ahead and the sheep following because they recognize his voice. Later in the passage, Jesus identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep.

The picture reveals His care and identity. It also gives me something to consider about familiarity and trust, while remembering that I remain a human leader capable of getting the direction wrong.

What do people recognize in my voice?

Do they hear someone who will listen before reacting?

Someone who can make a decision and explain it?

Someone who takes responsibility when the direction needs to change?

Or do they spend the first half of the conversation trying to figure out what mood they need to manage before telling the truth?

I have written about anger and the damage caused by the way I responded to pressure. Those lessons matter here. The words coming out of my mouth can be reasonable while the history attached to my reaction makes people cautious.

I cannot expect one calm conversation to erase what repeated behavior taught them to anticipate. Trust needs a pattern it can recognize. My responsibility is to keep practicing the change and let people form their own judgment over time.

That includes welcoming an informed disagreement. Someone can respect me and question the route. Someone can believe in the purpose and see a practical problem I missed.

I want the people around me to know that bringing the problem forward will help the work. They should have enough confidence in the relationship to speak while there is still time to act.

If the only safe answer around me is yes, I am making it harder for anyone to help me lead well.

A Walk Is an Invitation, Not an Exam

The observation about my children is meaningful because it is freely given. I would spoil it if I started using their response as a daily referendum on whether Dad still has influence.

I can invite them. I can tell them where we are going. I can make room for a question, a slower pace, or a different interest. The relationship does not need to become a test they are secretly taking every time I approach the door.

The same applies to adults. A leader who needs an agenda or asks why a change matters may be acting responsibly. They might have a team to coordinate, a customer commitment to protect, or information I do not have.

Clear communication respects those responsibilities. It gives people something real to evaluate and support.

The practical test I want to use is whether people understand the direction and can engage honestly with it. Have I explained the purpose? Have I named the constraints? Have I asked what the decision will require from them?

I can also ask what makes joining the work harder. Sometimes the answer is a trust problem. Sometimes the answer is a schedule, a missing skill, or a request that was never clear in the first place.

Being interested in that answer helps me serve. Assuming every hesitation exposes a failure in the other person mainly helps me avoid looking at my own part.

There is influence in a good invitation. There is respect in an honest explanation. I want to become better at both, including when the people involved are perfectly capable of choosing their own next step.

Moses Was Busy, and Everyone Was Still Waiting

Exodus 18 describes Moses hearing the people’s disputes from morning to evening. Jethro sees the strain on Moses and on the people waiting for him. He advises Moses to teach what is required, appoint capable and trustworthy leaders, and reserve the difficult cases for himself. Moses listens and shares the responsibility.

The arrangement keeps standards and an escalation path while giving others real decisions to make. Its requirements include integrity as well as ability, especially resistance to dishonest gain.

I can recognize the temptation to make myself necessary to every answer. Solving the problem can feel good. Being the person who knows what to do can become part of how I understand my value.

But a business owner who must approve every ordinary step eventually creates a queue around one person’s availability.

The team waits.

Customers wait.

Work that could have moved forward becomes another item looking for a place in the owner’s day.

At that point, my packed calendar may reveal how much responsibility I have failed to distribute.

Jethro’s counsel gives me a useful question to apply to my own work: which decisions am I holding that someone else could learn to make responsibly?

The answer requires preparation. I need to identify the right person, explain the standards, provide enough information, and agree on when help is needed. Giving someone a responsibility without the time or means to carry it is an assignment to struggle.

There is also something humbling about Moses receiving counsel. He holds a significant role, and someone else still sees a better arrangement. I need to leave room for that possibility in my own life.

The people who help me lead well may be the ones willing to point out that everyone is exhausted by the system I keep defending.

The Risk of Letting Someone Else Think

Developing another leader requires me to give them room to exercise judgment, including the possibility that they will choose an approach different from mine.

I can be comfortable taking a large business risk and strangely uncomfortable watching a capable person solve an ordinary problem without consulting me on every detail.

Apparently, some risks become terrifying the moment my preferred font is no longer guaranteed.

There are decisions where exact procedures matter. There are also decisions where I have confused a sound standard with my personal preference. I need to know which kind I am delegating.

Imagine a project leader responsible for completing work on time and within an agreed budget. If every supplier call, sequence change, and customer update still requires the owner’s approval, that person has a title and a growing collection of permission requests.

A more useful arrangement makes the boundaries explicit. What can they approve? What spending requires another review? What must be communicated? Which changes affect an agreement and need further authorization? What situations require immediate help?

Within those boundaries, they need room to decide. They also need a time to review what happened, examine the reasoning, and improve the next decision.

That is a risk I can take responsibly because it includes preparation, limits, and support. It asks me to release some control while remaining accountable for how I have equipped the person.

I want leaders who can think well when I am elsewhere.

To develop that ability, I have to let them practice while I am available to help.

Questions That Leave Room for an Answer

When a capable leader brings me a problem, I can begin by asking what they see.

What facts matter?

What options have they considered?

What do they recommend, and what would make them change that recommendation?

Those questions give me a chance to understand their thinking before supplying mine.

I may discover that the person needs a resource, a decision beyond their authority, or help with a trade-off. I may also learn that their solution is better than the one I was about to announce.

That would be inconvenient for my ego and excellent for the work.

Coaching also requires me to let an answer remain theirs. If I ask for their judgment and then insist they reproduce my original idea word for word, they will eventually understand what the exercise is really for.

When I already have a firm requirement, I should state it clearly. When a person is new to the work, I should teach. When a situation calls for an immediate decision, I should make it.

Questions are useful when there is real space to explore an answer.

Consider a sales leader whose team is missing follow-ups. The owner could issue another instruction to work harder. A useful conversation could examine where the process breaks: assignment, timing, capacity, unclear responsibility, or follow-through.

The sales leader can then propose a correction, name the support required, and agree on how results will be reviewed. That develops judgment alongside execution.

Over time, I want more of those conversations to produce a person better equipped for the next problem. If every conversation ends with another task added to my list, I should examine what I am teaching people about where responsibility belongs.

Protect the Leader Without Protecting the Wrong

Delegation becomes confusing when I give a leader responsibility and then routinely bypass them to direct their team myself.

People quickly learn whose decision counts. The person supposedly leading becomes a stop on the way to the person they believe has the real answer. I cannot keep creating that detour and then criticize the leader for lacking authority.

For ordinary disagreements, I can speak directly with the leader, hear the reasoning, and clarify what needs to happen. If the team received conflicting directions, I should help resolve that confusion and own my part in creating it.

Public support also needs to stay truthful. A leader’s position cannot become a reason to hide serious harm, defend dishonesty, or prevent someone from raising a legitimate concern. Protecting people can require immediate intervention and appropriate escalation.

First Peter 5:2–3 addresses church elders, calling them to willing care, service, and an example that avoids domination. I can apply that challenge to how I handle responsibility without pretending every organization has the same role as a church.

The person reporting to me deserves dignity. So do the people reporting to them. I want a structure where both can receive support, correction, and a fair hearing.

That is especially important when the mistake is mine. If I changed the direction without telling anyone, the leader should not have to absorb the embarrassment while I preserve my appearance of consistency.

Sometimes the most useful thing I can say is that I gave conflicting instructions and need to make them clear. It gives the work somewhere honest to go next. It also shows other leaders what taking responsibility can look like.

What My Children Are Learning While I Lead

At home, this lesson becomes personal in a different way. Madison, Charlotte, Titus, David, Kennedy, and Emma see much more of me than the version that can be prepared for a meeting.

They see a father in the ordinary parts of life. Those ordinary moments are where my example keeps teaching, including when I would prefer to call the lesson off for the afternoon.

I want them to see someone who can hear a question without treating it as a threat. Someone who can set a boundary calmly, explain what can be explained, and apologize for a wrong response.

Their ages and abilities are different. They need different kinds of instruction, support, and freedom. Giving responsibility thoughtfully means paying attention to the child in front of me, including whether I have actually taught what I am now expecting.

This also reaches my marriage. Our relationship needs honest conversation and shared responsibility. A leadership vocabulary becomes useless if I use it to avoid listening to the person whose life is most closely joined to mine.

My children are learning from the way I treat their mother as well as the way I speak to them. They can hear what I say about love and also experience how I behave when love requires discomfort.

I want my ceiling to become their floor. That will require giving them more than accounts of the risks I took. It means passing on useful judgment, honest lessons about what went wrong, and an example of accepting correction.

The walk I hope they eventually choose may take them somewhere I have never been. I want to help them become equipped for that future, with faith and responsibility they can practice for themselves.

Influence Keeps Teaching in My Absence

Influence can endure beyond a role, but it is not automatically good because people choose to follow it. A persuasive person can attract trust and still use it badly. Familiarity, confidence, and a compelling story do not remove the need to examine a decision.

I have written about the danger of treating conviction as permission. The same examination belongs here. If people trust me, I need to respect what their trust places within reach. I need to be more open to scrutiny, including when I believe strongly in the outcome.

That connects this lesson to Covert: the motives, habits, and responses beneath the public presentation. I need to notice whether I want to develop people or be needed by them. Both desires can sound helpful at first and produce very different behavior over time.

If I want to be needed, I may keep knowledge to myself, interrupt decisions, or provide enough help to make the next request inevitable. If I want someone to grow, I need to explain, share information, and let responsibility become real.

Second Timothy 2:2 describes Paul asking Timothy to entrust teaching to reliable people who can teach others. The instruction concerns the transmission of Christian teaching. It also gives me a picture of development reaching beyond the immediate relationship.

I can apply that picture to the question of what others are becoming through my example. Are they better able to listen, judge responsibly, tell the truth, and help the next person learn?

Those are meaningful results even when they reduce the number of problems brought directly to me. My importance does not need to be demonstrated by how much stops working whenever I am unavailable.

Your Walk May Look Different

You may not own a business or manage anyone. There are still places where your example influences what becomes normal.

You could be the employee who tells a colleague how to correct a mistake instead of covering it up.

You could be the friend who listens carefully and asks what support is wanted before giving advice.

You could be the volunteer who welcomes someone new and explains the work without treating their questions as an inconvenience.

A parent can give a child a manageable responsibility, demonstrate it, and allow practice.

A manager can make decision limits clear before expecting independence.

A teammate can ask for the information needed to contribute well instead of quietly assuming someone else will handle it.

You can also examine how you respond when another person needs authority exercised fairly. A request for a decision may be an opportunity to provide clarity. Avoiding it in the name of empowerment can leave everyone carrying uncertainty that belonged to you to resolve.

The Walk I Want to Leave Behind

When I put on my shoes and my children want to come along, I receive something worth paying attention to. It reminds me that relationships are being formed through ordinary time together.

I want to carry that attentiveness into leadership. The people around me deserve clear direction, honest care, appropriate authority, and room to develop. I need to practice those things when they are inconvenient as well as when they fit the plan.

The lasting result will include what people experienced of my care and what they became equipped to carry forward. A title can change. An organization can change. The example given in those relationships may keep teaching for years.

I want to develop leaders who can make honest decisions and help others grow. I want my children to carry wisdom they can use beyond the reach of my instructions. I want to receive correction myself so that the next part of the walk is better than the last.

The point of leading leaders is to help them become trustworthy when I am not in the room.

Closing Prayer of Influence.

Father, thank You for the people You have placed in my life and for every responsibility that asks me to grow.

Teach me to lead through service, truth, and a consistent example. Help me use authority with care and earn trust through the way I treat people each day.

Show me where pride makes me defensive, where control keeps another person from growing, and where I have expected understanding without giving a clear explanation. Give me courage to acknowledge those patterns and change them.

Help me equip people for the responsibility I ask them to carry. Make me generous with knowledge, thoughtful about boundaries, and willing to let capable people exercise their judgment. Give me wisdom to know when to teach, when to ask, when to decide, and when to listen.

Keep me accountable to truth. Help me welcome concerns and act when someone needs protection or a wrong needs correction. Where I have confused people or harmed trust, help me take responsibility and follow through with patience.

Bless Danielle and our children. Help me bring presence and care into our home. Let the way I treat the people closest to me agree with the faith I speak about publicly.

Help each reader recognize one place where a clearer decision, a better example, or a more patient response could help another person grow. Give us humility to receive the same help ourselves.

Lead our steps toward You. Let the influence we leave behind help others live with greater wisdom, integrity, and love.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.