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Sometimes leadership is practiced in decision-making, sometimes in establishing a vision, in solving problems or in sorting out people issues.
Too, leadership is often found in boardrooms, on manufacturing floors, on battlefields or in governments.
Sometimes, though, leadership is practiced in standing up for those who would find it difficult to stand up for themselves. And sometimes it's found in places you'd least expect...
Desiree Andrews attends Lincoln Middle School in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Desiree has Down's syndrome.
One day a few years ago she was watching the TV show Glee. She noticed that one of the cheerleaders on the show had Down's syndrome. She immediately thought, "Well, then I can be a cheerleader too."
Indeed.
So in middle school she became one, a cheerleader that is.
It'd been a great experience for her too...until a couple of weeks ago.
During a boys basketball game Desiree was cheering at courtside with her other cheerleader teammates when some kids started heckling her from the stands. They were making fun of her.
Desiree ignored it.
The bullies pressed on shouting derisive nasty stuff.
And the game was stopped.
Wait, let me be clear here: the ref didn't stop the game. The coach didn't stop the game. The Athletic Director didn't stop the game. The parents in the stands didn't stop the game.
The boys, the players-these 12 and 13 year old young men-stopped their game.
I'm trying to picture how they did this.
They heard the bullies in the stands and they stopped dribbling or shooting or guarding, whatever it was they were doing at the time. They stopped.
In this "winning is the only thing" culture we live in, they stopped. At their self-absorbed tween age, they stopped. In front of others, they stopped. Without asking permission, they stopped.
They stopped the game themselves, walked over and defended their friend.
Period.
"We walked off the court and went to the bullies and told them to stop because that's not right to be mean to another person," Miles Rodriguez, one of the players told Fox and Friends last week.
The bullies were addressed.
The bullies stopped.
Desiree was defended.
Order was restored.
The adults supported the boys.
And the boys went back to their game.
Are you one of those foolish people who had given up on this next generation of kids because they can't possibly be as clued in as yours?
Indeed, sometimes leadership is the taming of a bully by his peers on an obscure middle school basketball floor in southeastern Wisconsin.
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