Glorious

My daughter started a new job today running a very large social service agency in California. She is perfect for this job – educated, experienced, poised – and the position comes at a perfect time in her career. Still, it is an enormous leap, from managing a small staff in leadership development and community relations to directing hundreds of employees and a thick portfolio of direct human service programs addressing addiction, homelessness, and early childhood education. But because she has listened carefully to the lessons she’s taught others – about inclusion, compassion, and the courage to lead – she is very ready.

Part of me is envious.

I never did what she is doing.

I never saw myself having that big of a job.

Twenty-five or so years ago, the chairman of the board of the large nonprofit where I’d spent a good share of my career asked me to lunch. He was such a legendary figure in the African American community that things were named after him. We went to lunch at a famous downtown steakhouse where he ‘had a table’ and the waiters all knew his many likes and dislikes. We’d never had lunch before – it seemed peculiar that he would ask me but he was a man not to be refused. Lunch was an honor. I came nervous and worried even though I no longer worked for him or the organization, having left in protest over the board’s selection of a new executive director.

At the end of a long lunch, he motioned for the waiter. He caught me eyeing his plate with a generous portion of food left uneaten. “I find that if you leave a quarter of your meal on the plate, you keep your weight at a good level.”

My plate was scraped clean.

“I asked you here because I wanted to apologize.” I was taken aback. The man after whom things were named wanted to apologize to me.

“What for?”

“For not thinking you could do the job.” He went on to explain that when the organization fired its executive director and considered other executives in the organization to replace him, he’d skipped over me, deciding that I wasn’t capable of running the organization. “I’m sorry for that. For underestimating you.”

And so I thanked him for lunch and for the apology but I didn’t know what to make of either.

An enormous part of me thought his original instinct was right. I couldn’t have done the job. I had never seen myself in that role, could not envision being in charge, did not want to sit at the desk with the little sign that says “the buck stops here.” I always wanted the buck to stop at the desk of the person in the bigger office. I wanted to advise the person in the bigger office where the buck stopped, tell them what I thought, and then go home and have a drink, and be free of all the burden.

So the legendary figure wasn’t wrong. But maybe I was. Maybe I lacked gumption or self-confidence or bravado. Maybe I hung back, hid behind powerful men, saw myself as a perpetual second. Maybe I reveled too much in the narcotic territory of ‘being really smart for a girl’ and avoided risks, kept the cover of some guy’s three-piece suit, walked the length of the diving board but never went in head first.

I think of these things watching my daughter take on the leadership of this new, very large, impactful organization. She has more guts than me. But isn’t that what I want? For my kids to be stronger, braver, better than me?

Yes. It is exactly what I want. Even though it makes me think anew about my own life and career. Now is a different time, I tell myself. But, truth be told, my daughter is a different person. She carries the ‘buck stops here sign’ in her back pocket. Not every mother gets to see that. And it’s quite the glorious sight.

I am amazed and glad and very proud.