“True mentors run the risk of being hated and miscalculated…but what matters most in them is the persistence to mold individuals to become their own man and to make sure that they would be better than they were…” Thank you Atty. Oscar S. Moreno, I too once had a mentor like you!
-don-
“If you ever worked with me, you probably dreaded getting your memo back.
Those who worked with me in government know one thing.
I rarely signed a memorandum without reading it carefully.
Every memo that reached my desk would usually come back with something.
An underlined sentence.
A circled paragraph.
A question on the margin.
A correction.
Sometimes several pages full of handwritten notes.
I know many department heads found it frustrating.
In fact, I think some of them dreaded seeing my handwriting on their documents.
Then one day, a department head submitted a memorandum.
I read it from beginning to end.
I returned it without making a single mark.
He looked relieved.
Then I smiled and asked him,
“Who prepared this memo?”
He hesitated.
It turned out someone else had written it.
I told him,
“I knew it wasn’t yours.”
We all laughed.
From then on, my handwritten corrections became something of an inside joke.
Some department heads would even say,
“Kung daghan ug correction si Mayor, pasabot ana gi-review gyud niya.”
Looking back, I realize it was never about finding mistakes.
It was about helping people improve.
Because every document represented the work of government.
And the work of government deserved our very best.
Leadership is not about demanding perfection.
It is about helping people become better than they were yesterday.
Years later, many of those department heads would tell me that those handwritten notes made them better writers, better managers, and better public servants.
If that is true, then every minute spent reviewing those memos was time well spent.
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