I’ve always felt compelled toward leadership, even when I’ve been nothing but a follower. While others may be more charismatic, smarter, or faster with a joke, I’ve always known since being named captain of my football team back in high school in Haiti that I’ve had a natural gift to lead men.

I believe it began watching my father with our family. He was a kind, brilliant man always quick to lend his knowledge and teach, but he also knew when to get serious and demand the best out of those under him. More than anything though, he had a work ethic that would put all of us to shame.

Dad could have ruled with an iron fist. I saw plenty of fathers in Haiti do that, clinging to the belief that men are always in charge and always correct – and always the right person for every job. My dad wasn’t that obtuse. He recognized that the best man for the job was often not a man, it was my mom.

Prior to leaving the military a little over a year ago, I was in positions both in the US and Japan leading an on-base preventive medicine team for the Navy. It’s one thing when you’re just checking for infection and making sure that medicines are stored at proper temperature. It’s another when you get that once-in-100-years pandemic. I was grateful I’d had so many years leading the environmental health teams to lean on when COVID-19 surfaced. It was a challenge unlike any I think we’d seen.

While in the military, I instituted other programs and worked on projects, both professionally and personally, designed to help those around me with their leadership skills. Unfortunately, the thing that holds back most potential future leaders is not their skill set, but it’s just the lack of a mentor and the opportunities to show what they are worth.

I’m still working on some of these projects, and I can’t wait to share more with you, but when I left the military to return home, it was to live with my wife and two young sons for the first time in three years as a full-time husband and father. In the back of my mind, I think I may have been telling myself that things were going to be easy, but those young sons are older than they were when I left – they’re actually two completely different guys. My wife is still the same beautiful woman I fell in love with as a high school kid in Haiti, but she has grown as a human while I’ve been away, too.

The first few months at home, I realized that I couldn’t just assert my dominance as the man of the family now that I was home. The best thing I could do as a leader was to stand back and see how they operated, day-in and day-out. My wife and the boys had a good thing going, but of course there were areas that I saw I could help things. But after three years away, I couldn’t just come in like a ferret in a crystal store. I hung back because good leadership, as shown by my father, isn’t only about exercising your muscle, it’s about learning when not to prove you’re a top dog.

The reality was, I could have forced change in a bunch of things. Maybe I thought the boys were going to bed 30 minutes later than they should, or maybe my wife had switched the brand of shampoo we used before I left. Perhaps the route she drives to go to church is not the one I’d pick and where we now enjoy lunch after church isn’t my favorite spot, but leadership is about picking your spots and know when to let things go.

I still call home every week and still make sure to either get down to visit Dad or have him and Mom fly up to visit every year and he’s still an inspiration. Yes, I’m now the leader of my family, but I still see him as the Leader. And ultimately, I’m just a co-leader because like my father, I’m smart enough to recognize my wife is often the best one for the job.