Peach Tea

I was battling bronchitis or some other such chest ailment recently.  On the worst of the days my throat was raw and sore, difficult to swallow.  Now most people think of me as an exclusive coffee drinker.  And I've been known to drink a cup or two (often).  But most people don't know that in the afternoons and at home in the evening, I switch back to my childhood love of hot tea with milk.    Growing up there was nothing like a strong cup of black tea, English Breakfast, deeply steeped and rich with milk remains one of my favorites. But during the week of my real battle with bronchitis, I wasn't drinking much coffee or English tea with milk.  Most of the week I was brewing peach tea, drunk without milk sweetened with natural honey.  Why?  It soothed my throat.  It made me feel better.  It was what I needed.   99% of the time if I want a hot beverage I would never order, brew or drink peach tea.  I actually don't like fruit tea flavors; they smell too much like perfume to me.  They have little appeal.  But during that week peach tea with honey was the beverage of the day.   Sitting in the window this morning while I was reading on leadership, a lesson from the peach tea kept resurfacing in my mind.   Most leaders have some sense of what type of leader they are wired to be. They are a visionary leader, a strategic leader, a shepherding leader, a team building leader and 99% of the time we function best within the role in how we are wired.  But every so often we find ourselves in a set of circumstances that requires one of those other styles of leadership.  So we reach for the Peach Tea, because it's what's needed right now.   I've probably always seen myself as a visionary leader, one of those individuals who keeps communicating the vision, keeps placing it before the people, believing wholeheartedly that ultimately they will catch the vision and follow it.  It's the coffee cup of my style, the most reached for, most used style of leadership.  It's always been balanced by the strategic leadership style that wrestles with how does the vision become reality.  It's the English Tea, the other common cup in my life.   But every once in a while, what is most needed is a different style, a shepherding style, a re-engineering style, a bridge-building style.  One of those other flavors that need to be picked up because they make sense in the circumstances we are facing.   So what was my leadership lesson?   While I know I'm a morning coffee drinker and evening black enthusiast, there are times when peach tea with honey makes the most sense.   While I know that I'm wired to be a visionary- strategic leader there are times when another style makes the most sense.   What about you?  Do you know when it's time for peach tea?   The Man in the Window

Bruce D. Rzengota
Norwalk Alliance Church

Prayer is not preparation for the battle, it is the battle.