For someone who lives land-locked in West Tennessee, it seems odd that many of the examples I find most compelling and the descriptions I can easily picture are those which relate to water in some way or another. For whatever reason it happens, I experienced a moment when reading Dr. Henry Cloud’s Integrity that led me to contemplate the Wake Left Behind of my interactions with students, colleagues, loved ones, and even strangers. Cloud shares, “One of my favorite things to do is to sit on the aft deck of a boat going across the ocean and just watch the wake. It is such a beautiful, ever-changing creation as the ship continues on its path. You can tell a lot about a ship as you look at its wake…With people, the same thing is true.”

Typically, my relationship to the Wake Left Behind a boat is related to enjoying the way dolphins swim and leap through the agitated water, not an inner struggle with my character and the experience people have after interacting with me. But Cloud took me into that inner dialogue when he offers, “And just as with a boat, there are always two sides to the wake that a leader or someone else leaves when moving through our lives or the life of an organization. The two sides of the wake are: the task and the relationship.” So, in the margin of the book, I penned the question to myself, “What kind of wake do you leave behind?”

Most days, I prefer less challenging thoughts while reading, perhaps an intriguing police investigation or a captivating spy story is preferable; yet, on this particular day, I’m being confronted to consider a deeper topic as I read from Cloud, “When a person travels through a few years with an organization, or with a partnership, or any other kind of working association, he leaves a “wake” behind in these two areas, task and relationship: What did he accomplish and how did he deal with people? And we can tell a lot about that person from the nature of the wake.”

So, how would my students describe the Wake Left Behind one of my classes or advising sessions? To be honest, I’m slightly afraid to hear their answers. There is an ideal me that I hope is conveyed through my character, but as flawed and fallible as I am, I recognize a need to develop a Habit of Awareness, for the wake I see and the wake others experience, might not align well with each other. We might not receive enough feedback on the impression we leave on others, but I think it’s vital that we become intentional about seeking it out.

Now, I imagine parents get more than adequate feedback from their children on how they are doing in that particular area of their life and the Wake Left Behind them, but since I am not a parent and my area of influence is connected to college students, I rarely have to face this honest appraisal of my actions. Sometimes course evaluations and feedback provide a slim picture of my teaching, but more often than not, students leave our campus, exiting into a new phase of life without their professors ever knowing the Wake They Left Behind. We are left with questions like those expressed by Cloud, “Are a lot of people out there water-skiing on the wake, smiling, having a great time for our having ‘moved through their lives’? Or are they out there bobbing for air, bleeding, and left wounded as shark bait? What is the nature of the wake? Are they smiling or reeling?”

Because “we leave the effects of our interactions with people behind in their hearts, minds, and souls,” it is vital for us to realize, “Results matter…When we look at results, the wake, we are really looking at ourselves and learning something about our character in the same way that the wake of a ship tells us a lot about the ship. At the end of the day, we must look back and see if the wake of our work is profitable or not… And the wake doesn’t lie and it doesn’t care about excuses. It is what it is. No matter what we try to do to explain why, or to justify what the wake is, it still remains. It is what we leave behind and is our record.”

Perhaps, I will be brave enough to pose the question and listen deeply to the answers, “What does the Wake Left Behind me look like?” What can I learn from heartfelt answers and how do I adjust my character so that the Wake Left Behind leads someone to flourish and not flounder? Tough questions! Please consider sharing your thoughts about this topic in the comments below.

References:

Cloud, H. (2009). Integrity: The courage to meet the demands of reality. [Kindle version]. HarperCollins.