The way I think about leadership has changed quite a bit over the years. When I was younger, I probably described a strong leader as someone confident, decisive, and capable of giving people direction. I thought leadership meant being the person who knew what to do when everyone else was looking for an answer.
I still believe confidence and decision-making matter, but experience has taught me that they are only part of the job. Today, I think leadership has much more to do with responsibility. When people trust you to lead, they are placing something important in your hands. The question is not simply whether you can get people to follow you. The more important question is what you will do with that trust.
For me, the answer has increasingly come back to service. My faith has influenced that perspective, but so have years of working with people, organizing travel, building Champ Tours, and learning from situations that did not always go according to plan. I have come to believe that good leadership begins with understanding who you are serving and taking that responsibility seriously.
Service Is More Complicated Than It Sounds
The word “service” can sound simple. Be helpful. Treat people well. Listen to what they want and try to provide it. Those are all good things, but I have learned that serving people does not always mean giving them what they ask for.
Sometimes leadership requires saying no. Sometimes you have to make an unpopular decision because you know it is the responsible one. Sometimes you have to change a plan even though everyone would prefer to stick with the original one. Those situations have made me think carefully about the difference between serving people and simply trying to make everyone happy.
I see this often in travel. When people trust Champ Tours with a trip, they are trusting us with much more than an itinerary. They have invested their time and money, and they are counting on us to think through details they may never even see. When parents entrust their children to a travel experience, that responsibility becomes even greater.
Sometimes, serving those travelers means being flexible and finding a way to accommodate a request. Other times, safety, timing, logistics, or the needs of the larger group have to come first. I have learned that good leadership requires knowing the difference.
Travel Has Taught Me a Lot About Responsibility
Travel tests leadership because even the most carefully organized trip eventually encounters something unexpected. You can plan an itinerary months in advance, confirm every reservation, check every schedule, and still wake up to bad weather or discover that something has changed.
Those moments used to bother me more than they do now. My instinct was to want everything to go exactly according to plan because I felt responsible for delivering that plan. Over time, I realized my real responsibility wasn’t to the itinerary. It was to the people traveling with me.
That changed the way I approached problems. If something goes wrong, the first question is no longer how we can force the original plan to work. I am more interested in figuring out what will give the group the best experience under the circumstances we actually have.
People also pay attention to how a leader responds when something goes wrong. If I become visibly frustrated, that frustration can spread through an entire group. If I stay calm, communicate clearly, and focus on the solution, people are much more likely to do the same.
I have not handled every situation perfectly, and I would be suspicious of any leader who claimed otherwise. Some lessons only become obvious after you have had time to look back and think about what you could have done differently.
My Faith Influences the Way I See Leadership
My Christian faith is an important part of my life, and it has certainly shaped the way I think about serving others. I do not expect everyone I work with or travel with to share my beliefs. For me, however, faith reminds me that leadership should never become entirely about me.
It is easy for business to become focused on numbers. When you are running a company, you have to think about registrations, expenses, schedules, growth, and whether a new opportunity makes financial sense. Those things are necessary. Champ Tours couldn’t serve anyone for long if I ignored the realities of running a sustainable business.
What I try not to forget is that there is a person behind every number.
A traveler who asks several questions is not simply another email I need to answer. A parent who is nervous about a trip may be sending a child away from home for the first time. Something that feels routine to me after years of travel may feel like a very big step to someone else.
My faith reminds me to slow down enough to recognize that difference. I try to meet people where they are instead of expecting them to approach every situation with the same experience or confidence that I have.
Listening Has Become One of My Most Important Leadership Skills
I used to think leadership was largely about knowing what to say. These days, I think knowing when to listen may be more important.
A good example came from my father. We were talking about the Broadway experiences I had organized when he suggested that active seniors might enjoy the same kind of trip. It was a simple comment, and I could have easily dismissed it because senior travel was not part of my original plan.
Instead, I kept thinking about it. Would the experience translate to a different age group? What would need to change? Would people actually be interested?
Eventually, that conversation helped lead to a Broadway Experience for senior travelers. It reminded me that leadership does not require every good idea to originate with the leader. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is listen when someone sees an opportunity you have missed.
That experience has made me more conscious of how often useful ideas appear in ordinary conversations. People will tell you what they need if you are willing to hear them without immediately deciding whether their idea fits your existing plan.
Serving People Also Means Building Responsibly
There is a tension between service and growth that I think every business owner eventually has to confront. You want to help people, but you cannot do everything. You want the business to grow, but growth can create its own problems if you move too quickly.
I have had to ask myself what kind of growth actually makes sense for Champ Tours. Is an opportunity worth pursuing simply because it is available? Can we deliver the same quality experience? Does it fit what we do well, or are we stretching ourselves simply for the sake of getting bigger?
I do not think responsible business decisions are separate from serving people. They are part of it. Making promises you cannot keep is not service. Growing so quickly that people receive a worse experience is not service either. Sometimes taking care of the people who trust you means being disciplined enough to know what you should not do.
Leadership Is Something I Am Still Learning
I do not think there is a point where someone becomes a leader and suddenly has leadership figured out. If anything, taking on more responsibility has made me more aware of how much I still have to learn.
Some situations require confidence, while others require humility. Sometimes people need you to make a decision quickly; other times, the better choice is to stop talking and listen. Knowing which situation you are in is not always obvious.
When I am uncertain, I try to return to a simple question: What does serving the people who are trusting me look like right now?
I do not always arrive at the answer immediately, but I have found that it is a much better starting point than asking what makes me look successful or what makes my job easier.
My faith has helped me understand leadership through that lens, while business and travel have given me plenty of opportunities to test it in the real world. After all of those experiences, I have become less interested in leadership as a title and more interested in what it asks of the person carrying the responsibility.
For me, it starts with service.
