My wife and I, along with some great friends from the Seattle area, recently took a trip to Napa, California for a weekend of wine tasting and fine dining.  We were blessed to have won an auction lot last year at the Auction of Washington Wines while still living in the Seattle area.  The auction supports great causes including Children’s Hospital of Seattle, so we felt good about bidding for this particular auction item which included this great trip to Napa.

But it is always interesting to me how, even in the midst of a fun-filled weekend in the Napa Valley, leadership lessons can crop up and inspire me to write another blog post.  This happened during this fine weekend a few weeks ago.  We were lucky enough to stay at a private estate, Estate 8, which is a private estate on the One Hope Winery property in the Napa Valley. 

The property was beautiful and our main contact during our group’s stay was the Estate and Operations Manager, Daniel Gora.  Daniel is a young man in his 20’s who recently took this role at the estate. His duties include overseeing everything having to do with the day-to-day activities of the estate.  He makes sure the guests are well fed, have plenty of good wine, and are well taken care of during their stay.  His oversight includes the housekeeping operations and in general, making sure the estate runs smoothly and the guests have a great time.

Upon arrival at the estate, we were greeted by Daniel with glasses of the Estate’s Fume Blanc. .  A nice touch I have to admit 🙂  What struck me about Daniel was his sincerity.  He didn’t just pretend to be happy to see us and greet us, he sincerely was pleasant and friendly.  We were automatically made to feel welcome.  Sincerity is one of the basic tenants of leadership.  You have to be sincere, warts and all. People can spot a phony a mile away. Daniel was far from being a phony.  He took delight in giving us a tour of the estate and we all definitely felt we could count on him to take care of us during our weekend there.

Another thing that struck me was that upon being given the keys to our rooms, Daniel pitched in to help us take our bags to the room. There are no traditional “bell hops” at the estate.  It is a two story structure and we had to go up a flight of stairs to get to our room on the second floor. Luckily, my wife and I, though being in our 60’s, can still traverse going upstairs with luggage without help.  Daniel, however, insisted on helping people with their luggage.  I doubt that this is in his job description in general but he gladly and cheerfully helped to take our luggage upstairs.  Daniel is a true gentleman.  He also displayed another leadership trait – no job is too beneath him.   He is the estate  Operations Manager.  He has a lot of moving parts to deal with daily.  But taking bags upstairs for guests is something he did because he is a leader.  Leaders provide help and support and can get in the weeds when they need to be.

On the Saturday morning of the weekend we were there at the estate, Daniel cooked a wonderful breakfast for all of the guests of the estate.  Eggs, bacon to die for, mimosas – the whole works were on the menu.  On top of that, Daniel, earlier in the morning before making breakfast, went to a local bakery to buy some English muffins that are Ophrah Winfrey’s favorites.  I normally don’t eat English muffins but I have to admit, these were to die for.  When we arrived for breakfast, Daniel was busy making breakfast, the coffee pots were full, and we wanted for nothing.  Now mind you, Daniel is having to do a lot of things to get breakfast on the table, not only for our group, but for other guests who were at the estate that weekend.

At one point, Daniel was assisted by another estate worker.  But somewhere in the process, after breakfast was over, my wife overheard a conversation between Daniel and this other worker. This other worker had some obligation/appointment to attend to and Daniel told her to go ahead and make her appointment.  My wife overheard Daniel saying “I will take care of everything here.”  Mind you, at that point after breakfast, the place was a mess of plates, glasses, food that needed to be disposed of etc.  Hard enough for two people, let alone one.  But Daniel, sensing that his colleague really needed to go, didn’t pull rank and say she had to stay to help him. He understood the importance of her engagement and said he would clean up the place on his own.  Which he did!! Leaders, true leaders, are devotees of Servant Leadership.  No task is beneath them and they think about their troops first.  They think about themselves second.  Daniel displayed true Servant Leadership in this instance.  I suspect he does this all the time!

When I heard of this, I immediately had my inspiration for another blog post.  I told Daniel that I thought he was an exceptional young leader and was impressed with what I saw. I told him that I was going to write a blog post on him.  You could tell he was genuinely embarrassed by this, but happy that I thought of him as a leader.  True leaders are humble. They don’t toot their own horns. We have too many so-called leaders in our world today who only know the word “me” and not “them.”  Daniel knows the value of a team and in my opinion, is a true leader.

On our way home after a marvelous weekend, I thought about Daniel and the leadership traits I observed from him during the course of our stay at the estate.  As far as I know, and I could be wrong on this, Daniel has no military experience or formal leadership training.  He truly is one of those people who know how to lead and how to treat people, at all levels.  He treated his colleague and those who worked for him, with the same respect he gave to us, the guests at the estate.

Oh, to have more leaders in business and government like Daniel! The world would certainly be a better place. Well done Daniel!  Keep it up!

Until next time, signing out.