Sometimes the most obvious and profound forms of leadership hit you up-side the head when you least expect it. I got in the car Sunday morning to go pick up my older son John from a friend’s house where he had spent the night. Minutes later, on the two lane rural highway ahead of me was a car accident that obviously had just happened, right at the intersection of another two lane road. No emergency vehicles had arrived yet, and there were a few men directing traffic and helping the victims to the roadside. I squinted as I got closer trying to make out the familiar looking figure in the Levis and white t-shirt. It was my son, waving his arms for traffic to slow and to move to the shoulders of the road. Turns out the accident was a mere stone’s throw from his friend’s house. Hearing the impact, John, his friend, and some other locals had sprung into action.

I followed his direction, and then pulled off for a few minutes, watching as my young son stepped seemingly effortlessly into control, surveying and directing the weekend traffic coming and going on the rural but busy road. Just then the fire truck pulled up and the Captain got out and shook my son’s hand, like a peer. He gave him a yellow jacket and a traffic control sign and let him get back to work. You see, my son is in training as a volunteer firefighter. His father is a fire captain, and John has waited for this day since his dad’s boots came up to his hips and the weight of his helmet toppled him over. He just turned 15, the legal age for one to start training as a volunteer and to go on calls and actually assist. But, of course, he’s been hanging out with his dad, uncles, and cousins at the volunteer station for years, hearing the men he aspires to be like exchange fire and rescue stories

I pulled back into the line of traffic. As I passed John, I instinctually asked, “Are you alright?” before I could edit myself. Of course he was alright! He was soaring, but his reply was simply, “Yeah, Mom, just keep the traffic moving.” So, I did. And then it hit me. This was his first call…and I had gotten to witness my son moving into the leadership role for which he is so intentionally grooming himself. Needless to say, there were tears streaming down my face as I drove back.

When his cousin dropped him back off at home, John was beaming and reliving every moment as he recounted each detail to me and his brother. We were all ears. Though his father and I are no longer together, we each know that our son will walk a mile in the shoes of the firefighters he knows and admires…and then outgrow them, exceed them. He is walking his own path and will either find or create the tools he needs to do so, whether he is a firefighter or not (and he probably will be!). So for anyone with a young leader in their life, I would say this: support them, love them, give them boundaries, listen to them as they figure it all out and, perhaps most importantly, be a mirror for what they need to see in and of themselves. And then, little by little, set them free to touch the lives that they will.

These Gen Y leaders seem to be ten steps ahead of even themselves, let alone those of us who are fortunate enough to nurture them. We walk a fine line between helping them get their footing and knowing just when to let go of their hands. But don’t worry, they’ll let us know when we hold too tightly or too long.

The last thing my son said to me that night was, “So, Mom…did you really cry when you were driving back home?”

“Yes…I’m so proud of you. I love you.”

He smiled at me and turned to go to bed. I heard him softly say, “I love you, too,” when he was safely out of sight.