LEGO® TO LEADERS: IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO BUILD THE FUTURE

By Jeffrey M. Hosko

"LEGO® to Leaders: It's Never Too Early to Build the Future" coaches readers on how LEGO® playtime can introduce leadership to children. Many leaders found their passions early on, such as Jane Goodall and Neil Armstrong who went on to lead conservation efforts and a mission to the moon, respectively. LEGO® playtime is a fun activity that can inspire children to lead! It doesn't need to be a painful imprint on the bottom of your foot.

Have you ever crossed paths with someone who was tasked with leading, but lacked the necessary skills to gain followers? Did you wonder if they were practicing leadership for the first time? Even professional athletes had to learn some skills as children. So why do some parents pass on teaching children critical leadership skills? Imagine the impact parent-leaders could have if they started now and utilized LEGO® playtime as a fun and exciting tool. Maybe they'll find that they possess the Cosmo Kramer factor or Square Compass needed for leadership.

This entertaining guide helps remind parent-leaders that leadership is about serving others physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Leadership is not a specific position to be in, but a way of being. LEGO® playtime allows children to develop their building blocks of leadership and helps them to master the essentials, which includes intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability.

If you are a parent, mentor, or guardian of a child who loves to explore the world and express themselves with LEGO®, then this book is for you. But it's not geared only to the spiritual, but the curious as well. God can change the world through just one child, so let's give Him millions to work with. The future depends on it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667833798

Book preview

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This is a work of creative nonfiction. Some parts have been fictionalized in varying degrees, for various purposes. Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO® Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this book.

Copyright © 2022 by Jeffrey M. Hosko

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

First Edition

Book design by BookBaby

ISBN (Print Edition): 9781667833781

ISBN (eBook Edition): 9781667833798

To my incredible wife, for supporting and walking with me on this crazy and fun path.

To Pablo, for showing me how to take a story by the horns and to chase it with passion and commitment in hopes of making the world a better place.

To family, friends, and mentors, for your encouragement and support.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: Just "Leg Godt"

CHAPTER 2: Another Brick in the Wall

CHAPTER 3: Central Intelligence Affluency (CIA)

CHAPTER 4: Cosmo Kramer Factor

CHAPTER 5: Turning the Tides

CHAPTER 6: Square Compass

CHAPTER 7: Ebb and Flow of Key-munication

CHAPTER 8: Lego My Ego

CHAPTER 9: For the Spiritual (or the Curious)

Notes

INTRODUCTION

Saturday mornings were the moments I looked forward to the most as a child. School was done for the week. Playtime, cartoons, and laughter were on the agenda. Vinyl records were playing loud from the turntable in the other room. But most importantly, it was my time to play with LEGO® bricks and toys. Don’t get me wrong – I looked forward to the blaring sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Freddie Mercury testing the limits of the 1980s era Pioneer speakers on Saturday mornings. Especially in comparison to the blaring sounds throughout the school week of a frustrated elementary teacher yelling and pounding the chalkboard because the students were not understanding the whole structure of a sentence concept. But that is another story altogether.

Saturday mornings with LEGO® bricks and toys were my time to use my imagination and dreams, and to create the next best aerodynamic spaceship or test my buoyancy skills by seeing how long it would take for my top-heavy boat to sink in the pool. The ideas were endless. And LEGO® provided me with the tools to expand on those ideas. However, as I grew older and further into my career in leadership roles, I began to notice that there were missed opportunities to develop my leadership skills during those moments as a child. If only I knew then what I know now. If only I had someone to create and build LEGO® with me on those Saturday mornings. If only I did not build the next greatest spaceship in isolation. If only I would have improvised when I was missing pieces. If only I had known to put foam in between the bricks to help the boat float. Looking back, I often wonder what leadership skills I might have developed then that would have aided me in my managerial and leadership roles over the years.

I believe leadership is about being in service to others physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And I don’t mean just in the workplace, but anywhere you come into contact with family, friends, or strangers. Leadership is not a specific position or place to be, but a way of being. It is about how you are toward others in helping them grow and achieve their dreams and aspirations. There is an endless number of resources dedicated to improving leadership skills within organizations or at the executive level. And I encourage you to seek that knowledge and information if your goal is to grow in your occupation. But that is not the intent of this book. If you are a parent, mentor, or guardian of a child who loves to explore the world and express themselves with LEGO®, I believe there is a relationship among the different leadership skills you can teach children during those brief moments when they are playing with these toys. And it can also serve as a platform that allows children to develop their building blocks of skills that will help them through their lifelong journey.

There are many other playful activities, such as music or sports, that can provide opportunities to bridge the relationship between the building blocks of leadership and the skills needed to be successful in leading others. I didn’t choose LEGO® for this book for sentimentality, but because of the symbolic nature and the opportunity it provides for a quiet environment where an adult and child can interact and communicate productively. I do not own stock in the LEGO® Group, nor am I promoting the purchase of their products. But throughout my career, one thing I have noticed from all the leadership meetings I have facilitated and conflicts I have resolved, sometimes the most valuable investment of time is the one-on-one meetings that take place in a quiet environment with minimal distractions.

Surroundings matter and so does the substance of the conversation. Some of my greatest leadership moments of helping people grow and be successful have come from coaching and teaching from a quiet office with one small table and two chairs. Leadership is less successful when standing over someone in an intimidating manner. Sitting with a subordinate at their level can help provide a more comfortable environment that encourages dialogue between both parties. It is no different from how an adult can interact with a child. Sometimes you just have to sit on the floor with them, at their level, and build a LEGO® city while talking about the foundations of leadership rather than standing over them and instructing them to clean up their mess and then walking out of the room. Missed opportunities.

There have been many discussions and opinions offered throughout time about what traits or behaviors may be required to be a skilled leader. Experts from all walks of life seem to provide their definition of what or who a leader is and if he or she is naturally born with these gifts or develops them over time. Or even if everyone is naturally capable and can be a leader. Many books, articles, and studies are still being used today to research and debate these assumptions on both sides. C-level executives perform seminars on what type of leadership can make your company successful. Athletes speak in interviews about how their coach possessed the right leadership skills to lead them to a championship. Military commanders share how certain leadership traits can help you win battles. Turn on the television and you can usually find someone discussing great or poor displays of leadership.

However, I believe regardless of what expert you believe or listen to on the topic of leadership, some common traits are critical and valuable in developing children into leaders. Over a century of research has helped create a list of common traits and characteristics that are significant and essential to growing and developing as a leader, which includes: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability.¹ These can be broad terms, to say the least, but they do encompass traits and characteristics that children can start to develop at an early age given the right guidance and environment. And these terms will be discussed further in the following chapters.

As with employees in the workplace, investing and growing individuals is almost impossible if the leader is only thinking about himself or herself first. This is no different with children. It can be helpful when an adult exhibits a servant style of leadership in hopes of doing what is best for the child. This plays an important role in being able to positively influence anyone that falls within your responsibility, either at home or in the workplace. If you are a person of faith, you know what I am talking about. Those of us who lead with morals and biblically-based principles tend to find ourselves practicing servant leadership more than any other style.

If you approach a child who is creating, dreaming, or pretending to be on an adventure, you should take advantage of the opportunity for their benefit. If you only find the need to scold them about the cleanliness of their room or for being too loud, it is another opportunity missed. Servant leadership requires you not to put yourself last. Don’t worry about how long an influential conversation will take or how much it will cut into your time. Be in the moment. Be present. Be receptive. You will find that you can build things together that go well beyond a LEGO® creation.

It took me some time to realize this at home. Even though servant leadership became natural to me in the workplace, eventually, I recognized that I was missing some opportunities when it came to my family.

When I married my lovely wife, I also took on the responsibility of becoming a father to a special needs child who was eight years old at that time. There were many questions I had asked myself in the early stages of the relationship with my stepdaughter. How was I going to be a good father to her, let alone a leader? How was I going to be able to handle the everyday responsibilities of caring for someone who is bound to a wheelchair? What happens if I fail? The questions were endless, and the answers were far from certain. But years later, I can tell you with confidence that I have learned much more from her than she has from me.

It all started with a princess castle LEGO® set. Sitting beside her on the floor. Sharing in the adventure with her. Seeing her determination and joy in completing the task at hand. All the while I was hoping to set up a foundation or platform where I could eventually start teaching and coaching her in some of the leadership traits and characteristics mentioned above. Now mind you, building a princess castle while hearing about Elsa and Olaf would not have been my first choice. Why could have we not just settled on a Star Wars™ Millennium Falcon™ build project? Because then I would be serving myself and not her. But it turned out to be one of my most memorable moments with my family. And I believe it can be the same for you in your experiences at home.

My hope for you is that you will find this book as a simple guide to help shape the moments in which you are interacting with the children in your life. A guide that will help the children learn the leadership traits and skills that will help make them successful in their lives. A servant leader, parent, mentor, or guardian should help foster this growth early on. Not waiting until they are teenagers or off to college, although it is never too late. But get their feet wet now when they are children.

It is like investing in a house. The more years you have to pay on a mortgage, the less stressful it is by being able to chip away at it without having to put too much into it at one time. And you still may come out of it with some great equity. Similarly, start encouraging leadership skills in small doses during the developmental years of childhood and it may prove less stressful and more productive. Chances are the equity you get out of it long-term may yield quite a legacy.

CHAPTER 1

Just Leg Godt

Nowadays, almost any public urban area you find yourself wandering through is filled with creativity, imagination, and adventure. Advertisements are overwhelmingly on display all around you. Some of them even try to convince you that if you own their product or invest in their idea, your life will be better and more complete. Sounds good, right? Creativity, imagination, and a sense of adventure should be encouraged and welcomed. It is a playground for all of us children who are just grown up, or for some of us, it is a tumultuous environment that we need to navigate through to escape the sensory overload. We may experience this in the commercial jungle when we turn on the television. Leadership efforts are abundant and on display in this type of playful digital environment with all the various messages being thrown at us. All vying for our followership.

But playtime and some of the leadership lessons found in this public area are not always good for us. Some sales tactics presented by marketers may not display what good leadership should look like. A leadership style that should encourage us to be more ethical and moral human beings, without the sole purpose of trying to sell you an item or idea. Some sales tactics may have the opposite effect altogether. They might try to convince us that we need to be people who display cutthroat behaviors toward others so that we are not taken advantage of