The man

is a woman--my friend Beli, who's head of an education not-for-profit here in Boston. She opened her heart last night about what it's like to be boss.

Since I teach in a business-oriented school, I'm familiar with the leader vs manager literature but these have multiple dimensions: as teacher once herself, she knows first hand the issues her staff has to deal with in the classroom and in life. As office manager, she's made herself familiar, even facile (a point of pride) with the way money fuels the metabolism of her organization. As tenant, she's negotiated with administrators. As director, she's dealt with scheduling issues, staffing problems, and morale. As grant-writer, she's looked into the hearts of giving organization and sought to determine what they want that she can get her group to provide, her eye all the while on the long term survival of the program and the jobs of those working in it (herself included). As a community activist and idealist, she also does this so a group of people who need help can, in fact, get it.

I heard her address her staff 'I know you look at me as the man'; her benefactors,'You want personal development and measurable outcomes; you want it all'; her former self, 'I didn't think it was in me to do this' and me, apologetically, 'You see why I'm always so busy and tired--but I feel like the whole program depends on me.'

Leaders deals with change and the future, according to one thinker, and managerswith complexity and day to day functioning. The word that occurs to me as I think about what you do, Beli, is hospitality: maintaining an accessible place where people are welcome. Sustaining the integrity, the very existence of the space, is your Sisyphean labor but the end of it is a uninterrupted generosity toward prosperity for your neighbors. Though hard and often thankless, it's the kind of work that gives 'good' a good name.

The cool dusk darkened into night as the four of us chatted until someone driving by stopped to tell us she'd just seen a skunk down the road. Time to get home, go in, we agreed. Not bosses, not staff, just friends, we bade each other goodnight.