Second Fiddle Support Staff

Yesterday I wrote, “Support staff are the shining stars of the Summer Camp leadership structure. These awesome leaders have either retired from Top Dog positions or have determined that they are not to be Top Dog leaders. Many of the leadership gurus indirectly put down people such as this by inferring that we all should strive to be Top Dogs. Those gurus are fools in my opinion because the Support Staff play the hardest and most critical role in the leadership orchestra – second fiddle (but more on that another day!) These leaders are so qualified that they could do the Top Dog’s job alone, but instead they help the Top Dog do his job.” “

Those who hire and lead orchestras are entirely correct when they say, “The second chair is the hardest to fill.” Those who sit in the second chair are good enough to be recruited by others, to leave to find a first chair if they get discontent, or to create much trouble by creating discontent about the first fiddle.

The second chair is a tough chair to sit it. The accolades given to the second chair come only from the first chair or perhaps in the infrequent and lone solo. You know, it isn’t just in orchestra that the second chair is hard to fill and hard to sit in. In the camp leadership structure - which I believe is a microcosm of all breathing leadership structures – the Support Staff are in the second fiddle position.

That is why I will always hail the Support Staff as the most incredible and durable leaders on the planet. The Support Staff makes or breaks the Leadership Team. Those who happily find their home in the Support Staff are invaluable and incredible. These individuals can do the Top Dog’s job, the Emerging Leaders job and the work of ten College Leaders. They know it inside and out. They are like the Master Sergeants of the Army of Leadership with much field experience, medals of honor, battle scars and depth found only in staying in the job.

Christian leadership needs many more Support Staff. They have neither quit the leadership army to do their own thing, nor have they left to find a Top Dog position. They have found in the Lord their spot (that is those that have willingly chose that spot).

I refuse to let someone have a first chair without serving in the second chair. I have seen it again and again. The Support Staff person who cannot find contentment in second fiddle will make a less than ideal Top Dog. Interestingly, the best managers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, COOs, and CEOs that I know have all migrated back to Support Staff as they retire or mature. Finzel in his book “Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make” references this truth as he discusses the need to make room at the top. There is little that you can do as a Top Dog that you can’t do just as well from a Support Staff Position.

Support Staff are the best leaders in the world. Top Dogs who don’t mind sharing, don’t mind working, don’t need the limelight, don’t need an ego fix, don’t need anything but to see the work progress and soar. These great leaders (that is the ones who stay long enough as Support Staff to become great!) have nothing to prove because they have been proven.

If you can’t play second fiddle well and with a good attitude then why would any orchestra leader want to promote a prima Donna like you to first chair. Jesus said it more eloquently, “He who is first shall be last and he who is last shall be first” and, “God’s ways are not man’s ways.”