Who’s Following You?

You are leading someone. The only question is rather you do so well or poorly. I’ve been both a bad and good leader and been led by both as well. The poor leaders sometimes left scars that took many years to overcome; the good ones helped me overcome them.

Poor leadership hurts, especially when we’re young. If you have kids, you know that parenting is the greatest leadership challenge of all. Kids are most susceptible to the effects of bad leaders when they are young. In these formative years we create our beliefs about who we are, our self worth, how we should relate to other people and the world and a myriad of other important concepts like we never will again.

Having said this, excellent or shoddy leadership of course continues to affect us as adults as well. Just yesterday I was teaching a class and looked at the face of one of the mothers out in my KMMA Cafe. She seemed upset so I went to check on her. The cause of her upset was nothing to do with the class her girls were in, but rather a “bully” at work that had ruined her day. We don’t outgrow it.

Low self esteem, poor confidence, a lack of trust for others, entitlement mentality or it’s opposite- where we don’t think we are worthy of blessings and good things. All of these and many more are created young in life and are hard to overcome later (though we can and I have and we help many do the same).

As not to get too far from what I really wanted to tell you, or too academic when I’m trying to share something personal, let me just say that  took me many years to believe in myself and to think I was worthy and able of achieving great things.

I did lots of things and did them well, in school and then in the Army where I won an Army Green to Gold scholarship and became the first in my family to earn a college degree. I excelled as an Army Officer and in my martial arts earning multiple blackbelts and even went on to complete my Master of Business Administration as well as my Master Instructor certifications.

Leaders in my martial arts journey and in the military all helped form me into who I am today.

The point though is that I struggled with my confidence and self esteem much of my life and spent many years trying to impress others, really fighting for validation to myself that I was good enough, in spite of all these accomplishments.

The great news is that it was this realization, as I was transitioning from the military over twenty years ago, that led me to found this school and write the vision and mission that has directed us ever since.

I wanted to create a place where children would be empowered with self esteem, where people are respected and where individuals and families could learn and grow and prosper in a safe environment. I wrote the vision and mission describing what that place would be like. Both the good and the bad leaders along my journey helped inform that mission by the way- I took the good and applied it and used the bad behavior of bad leaders to know what not to do.

Thank you for helping us be the place I envisioned. As we continue to sow into our current students, families, team and local communities, we also plan to grow this vision, mission and our dojo family to more locations around Tampa Bay. More on that later as we are looking for future leaders for more KMMA Teams!

But to close this personal message from me to you, I just want to ask you a few important questions:

Who is following you?

What effect are you creating for them? Do you empower or disempower them?

If you’re not sure that answer, or upon honest reflection feel there’s room for improvement, who’s helping you become a better leader so you can sow better into them tomorrow?

Who were the good and bad leaders in your life and how did they affect who and how you are today?

Thank you for allowing us to live our mission of empowering your lives through Krav Maga Martial Arts.

Stephen Del Castillo

Founder, KMMA