Spring Cleaning Matters
        A few weeks ago I spoke about spring cleaning and the priorities we all make about this daunting task.  For me “spring” cleaning doesn’t happen only in the spring.  The kind of cleaning where you are motivated to clean out a closet or two, take boxes of “looks almost new” children’s clothing to Goodwill, wash at least a half-dozen windows, and repot a couple of houseplants is called “spring” cleaning for me - not because it happens in the springtime - but because it only happens when I spring into action to clean the cobwebs and corners of piled matter that I have successfully ignored for a couple of months or more.
        The trick to my spring cleaning sprees are to go non-stop till I drop.  When the mood hits, generally due to an expected visitor or a family celebration, I have to gear up for hours and hours of dragging out, putting away, shuffling around, and then it’s finally time to clean.  Most mothers I talk to agree, it is not the cleaning that is such an awful task, it is the getting ready to clean that takes more patience than picking lint off a white sweater.
        The easiest time of day to get started with the process is night.  After the children go to bed and I can settle with my thoughts and a clean pad to make my to do list,  the fresh pot of iced tea is the final ingredient before “springing” into action.  The biggest living areas are usually the first on my list to attack the piles of matter.  You know what I mean by piles of matter, don’t you?  These are the piles of stuff that matter to no one, and no matter what you do to get rid of them, they keep coming back again. I wonder if these piles of matter are like unwanted pounds that dieters lose again and again, only to step on the scale each week to find that they have returned, no matter how faithful to their diet they have been.
        So now that “piles of matter” are the first entry on my to do list, what am I going to do about them?  The ideal way to take care of the “piles of matter” is to sort through each one, pitching about 80% of each and find a home for the important 20% of the matter.  The problem with this approach is that it takes too much time. When I call myself to spring into action, the easiest way to get rid of the piles is to do “matter masking.”  This involves finding several empty boxes to put the piles of matter in so you can get to the job of cleaning quicker.  In case you do ever need to find one of those 20% that matters items, I suggest labeling and dating the box as to the date, time and location from whence the pile of matter, now inside the box, was put there.
        Let’s see, after the matter masking, “cleaning the horizontal spaces” is next on my list.  The tables, floors, counters, shelves, and last but not least the windowsills. Although one may argue that cleaning never really ends, when you finally get to the windowsills, you can sit back, breathe easier, look at your favorite framed family picture and realize why it all matters.

        Human nature encourages individuals to find more faults than rights with the job most of us are doing. This is shameful since most of us are trying our best to right what is wrong in our world.  In the past few years, I have observed the conscious efforts of the leaders of West Holmes schools leading their followers, the entire community, toward their vision of success. Our hats off to these leaders who could not possibly do everything right, but have certainly tried their best to. And, now, it’s time for a new hat.
        As John Maxwell conceptualizes in his leadership commentary, the 21 Irrevocable Laws of Leadership, ‘leaders developing followers adds to the value of your organization one person at a time, but leaders developing leaders multiplies the value of your organization by gaining the leaders and their followers as supporters.’  As we enter the next era in our West Holmes school system, following the move to the new high school, and the move of the sixth grades and the jr. high to create the middle school; it is time to develop the leadership capacities of our staff, parents, students, and the community at large. To the administration and those in positions of perceived leadership, you must not be satisfied until you have instilled in others the skills to lead.  What you create for the present is certainly commendable, but the leadership developed in those that will be here leading far into the future is how you should be evaluated.  
        To the principals and assistants in the schools, do you have the skills and capacities to mentor the teachers? Do the teachers have the abilities to be leadership role models to the student leaders?  Do the board members have the vision for leading our system through this community’s era of unprecedented growth?  Will our student leaders develop as concerned citizens to lead Holmes County or the community they will call home into its future?
        These are important questions that present challenges we are capable of addressing. Leaders developing leaders will take a committment from those capable of learning themselves and teaching what they know to others.  The stage is set following the graduation of the class of 2000 to mark our progress into this next century.  
        In closing, these words from John Maxwell, “leaders developing followers are different from leaders developing leaders: those developing followers need to be needed, those developing leaders want to be succeeded; developing followers concentrates on weakness, developing leaders concentrates on strengths; developing followers focuses on the bottom 20%, developing leaders focuses on the top 20%; developing followers means you treat all people the same, developing leaders means you treat people differently; those developing followers hoard power, developing leaders means giving power away; leaders developing followers spend time with others, those developing leaders invest time in others; leaders developing followers impact only the people they can touch personally, while leaders developing leaders will impact people far beyond their own reach.” 
        Our West Holmes school system can choose to grow by addition, or grow by multiplication. Leaders developing leaders is the challenge for the future. I wonder what the new hat will look like?