As I watched my 14-year-old son mowing the grass this week, I remembered
exactly what I was doing the spring when I was 14.  And later that summer,
I remember knowing how I wanted to be treated the rest of my life.    
        In late April of my 8th-grade year, a friend at my church asked me if I
wanted to follow the harvest with his dad's crew.  Every July, I had
watched harvest crews pull through my Northwest Kansas town.  I saw lots of
20-year-olds with scruffy beards driving huge farm trucks.
        My friend's dad contracted with wheat farmers from Texas to North Dakota.
The winter wheat ripens in Texas in early June and in North Dakota in
mid-August.  Crews follow the harvest north, cutting the wheat as it ripens.  
        Every summer this fellow hired high school and college boys to work for
him.  But his boy and I were just 14.  "Ever drove a truck on a highway,"
he asked me one day in Oklahoma. 
        Because my parents knew the boss to be a church-going man, they consented
to let me go with him and his crew for the entire summer.  No baseball.  No
swimming.  No church.  I wore an on old sweat-stained cowboy hat, left my
grammar at home and wiped the smile off my peach-fuzzed face.
        In early June we headed from Kansas deep into Oklahoma.  Mammoth combines
rode piggyback atop dual-axle trucks.  One truck pulled the trailer in
which we slept.  By the time we hit the Oklahoma border, I missed baseball
and swimming and friends.  
        To make matters worse, I had no mechanical aptitude.  The machines broke
down the day we left in early June, and they quit breaking down on our last
day in mid-August.  The boss cursed the machines; he growled at me; and he
drank too much.  I hung tough.  We got a 2-day break around the 4th of July
and went home.  "I hate this job," I told my dad.
        "Hang in there," he said.  "It'll build character."  Well, it built
something all right -- mostly bitterness toward the boss.  One day in late
July in northern South Dakota - from where you can see the end of the world
- the boss and I quit talking.  I couldn't fix a broken chain on one of the
combines, and he said, "Follis, you're the first man I've ever had work for
me who couldn't do the job."
        He was mean, and I clamed up.  Years later, I did forgive that old coot,
but I don't think I'd ever want him at my hospital bedside.  Watching my
growing 14-year-old come into his own this spring, I know I wanted then
exactly what I want now.
        First, I want to be complimented.  One of the highest compliments a person
can receive is one given by his boss.  I did my best, but he said
repeatedly, "You sure ain't mechanical, boy."  Of course, compliments have
to be sincere, but people - young and old - desperately need them. 
        Second, I want to be given hope.  Having someone tell you "I can't teach
you nothing" does not engender hope.  People are crying to be told there's
hope.  What if my first boss had said, "Two more weeks and we done."  It
would have thrilled me.
        Third, I want to be understood.  The Native American saying is right:
"Listen to the whispers and you won't have to hear the screams."  John
Maxwell speaks on leadership around the country.  He said, "Don't judge
what your people want to tell you before they've told you.  Take time to
understand their point of view and listen to their suggestions."
        Fourth, I want direction.  Most people need someone to navigate for them.
Part of the job of a parent, an employer or a pastor is to help people
figure out what they're most passionate about, and them help them pursue
it.  Why is it so hard to believe or understand that effectiveness comes as
a result of surrounding yourself with people who love what they do?
        But followers need something from leaders, too.  All leaders, regardless
of their profession, have to build bridges to their followers, or there
will be no followers.
        First and foremost, the leader has to be a person of character.  More than
anything else, followers must believe that their leaders are ethical and
honest.  The last thing I would have said about my first employer was,
"Someday I want to be like him."
        I hope my 14-year-old will say otherwise.

Don Follis is a University of Illinois campus minister.  His column appears
on Fridays.  Reprinted with permission from the Champaign-Urbana
News-Gazette, copyright 2000.