Andrey M. (LSI) - Reflections on Trust, Labor, and Leadership

Growing Up in the Village and My Father's Example

I grew up in a village. When I was little, I barely saw my parents: during the day they worked at the collective farm, and in the evening there was always chores to do around the house. My father is a man of few words, but when he speaks, every word is gold. Even now, at seventy-eight years old, he never sits idle; he is always doing something.

I would come home, sometimes in the winter, and my father would already be up at five in the morning, clearing snow. We have our own house, even though we live in the city now. And there is an awful lot to clear there—the yard is huge, massive—but he cleans it all up. He is a real hard worker. And he knows how to do everything. That trait stuck with me.

In Tataria, there is a saying that doesn't translate very smoothly into Russian: "Even seventy crafts are not enough for a man." My father can do everything—not because he trained for it, but simply because that’s how he lived, and he taught me by his example.

Childhood Memories and Role Models

My grandmother was completely illiterate, but she desperately wanted us to be educated, so she would force me: "Sit down and study! Just study so you can get a higher education." That was her dream.

Moreover, we had a neighbor—I was still just a schoolboy back then—who was a military officer. We all called him "the general," but as it turned out later, he was actually a captain. He was a navy man and came home on leave once every three or four years. Navy uniforms are so beautiful, and he had a dress dagger, yellow shoulder straps, and on top of that, his wife was a dyed blonde—at that time in our village, people didn't even know what that was. It stayed in my memory like a picture. It gave me something to strive for.

From Strict Guidance to Complete Independence

My grandmother (my mother's mother) was tough. She pushed me hard during my first two years, and I was a rather weak student in the first two grades, getting mostly Cs and Ds. Studies just wouldn't click for me. But starting from the third grade, they gave me complete freedom, and I felt a sense of independence and responsibility. I also lucked out with wonderful teachers. From the third grade on, I became a straight-A student.

The Power of Trust

Once, after the first grade, my parents sent me all by myself to buy schoolbooks. We lived in a small village, eighteen kilometers away from the district center. A group of neighbors gathered—older boys in the fifth and sixth grades—and there I was, just after the first grade. They gave me five rubles. It was 1964, and that was an enormous amount of money for that time. I didn't realize it then, but it deeply affected me—I had been trusted.

After the second grade, another boy and I rode our bicycles to Udmurtia to buy me sandals. My parents simply had no time. I don't remember how much money they gave me. And there it was again—trust. It made me stronger. I remember that I desperately didn't want to let my parents down or fail their expectations and their trust. This is still stuck in my head to this day. For me, letting down someone who trusts me is impossible; I would rather suffer myself than let a person down.

School Years and Early Responsibility

My brother is a year and a half younger than me. After the fifth grade, we had to travel twelve kilometers to go to school. In the winter during severe frosts, and in the autumn when it was muddy, we lived at a boarding school. They gave me money there too, but for some reason, I never spent it.

So, from the fifth grade, we started going to school in another village. There was a shortage of teachers. Me, a fifth-grader, the teachers would send to the eighth and ninth-grade classes to conduct lessons. I look back on this now and I am absolutely amazed. From the seventh grade, I was going to fifth and ninth-graders with the actual right to give out grades. Apparently, the teachers were very wise; many of them had gone through the war. Our history teacher was a major who survived three wars and had combat medals. Not even all of my peers know that there were three wars: the Finnish War, the war against the Germans, and the war against Japan. But Ivan Savelyevich went through all three.

Exam Strategy and Systematized Knowledge

I passed all my college entrance exams with top marks. I prepared so intensely that I was solving problems in my sleep. However, I never studied on the very last day before an exam. When people asked me why, I explained: "I deliberately don't clutter my head." Everything I have mastered settles into place on its shelves during that final day. When I sit down at the exam, all my knowledge is neatly organized on those shelves. I draw a ticket, and the exact shelf I need opens up instantly. If I had studied on the last day or through the night, it would have been a useless effort.

Everything comes from my parents: they made me who I am. I think it’s because they trusted me completely.

Trust and Responsibility

I told my parents that I was going to college. And that was it—the conversation ended right there. At graduation, the guys and I agreed on everything: everyone went home, and the next day at two o'clock, we would meet up and leave. I came home and told my mother that we were leaving for Kazan to apply to college. She just said, "Oh, alright then." I packed my things myself, and to this day, I always pack my own bags. I remember there was absolute trust in me; no one ever monitored or controlled me.

Over my entire childhood, there was only one clash with my parents. Twice a month, movies were brought to our village. Everyone—both the kids and adults—was talking about how interesting this upcoming movie was going to be. But my family was planning to go haymaking, and I bawled my eyes out. Everyone went to the movies, while we went to rake hay. I don't remember any other clashes with my parents because whatever I did, it happened without any shouting or arguments.

<...> My father also trusted me to work on the tractor. After the ninth grade, we all worked on the combine harvester; everyone had a license. Trust was incredibly important to me. Everyone understood that if I was trusted with something, I would bust my gut to get it done; I simply couldn't let a person down. The worst thing for me is to fail someone, especially if that person trusts you. That is why I cannot comprehend how people can betray one another.

Inner Sense of Responsibility and Freedom

During my studies, needless to say, it was pleasant to get top marks; I was a straight-A student.

When there was pressure or prodding, it had a negative effect on me. My wife read about Paganini—how his parents forced him to sit and fiddle for days on end, hitting his hands. I did everything on my own. I would come home from school and knew I had to do my homework first so that I could play in peace afterward, without a heavy heart. Everything had to be done.

When my son started school, my wife began forcing him to do his homework. The moment he came home, she'd say, "That's it, sit down." I would argue, but she was unyielding: "No means no!" He would just sit there, and my heart bled watching him. I would come home and know that he had been staring at that wall since two o'clock, seeing nothing but the wall. There was no such violence used against me. He did poorly in school. I thought, "That's it, he'll never make anything of himself!"

When we got him into college on a tuition-free basis, I told my wife, "That's it, leave him alone! He's a man, let him think for himself." His studies took off, and he graduated from two colleges at the same time—the pressure had been lifted from him.

When he was in school, I tried to help him, but I saw that he just couldn't grasp anything. It was simply stuck in his head that whether he finished it or not, he still had to sit there until eight o'clock. His mother wouldn't grant him any independence, so he barely finished school with Cs.

A Lesson in Respect for Elders

Once, we were taught a lifelong lesson in a Muslim village. We had met a guy, became friends, and went to visit his village. He had a father who was forty-five at the time—a big, strong man—and a grandfather who was about a meter and a half tall and weighed maybe forty-five kilograms. In a Muslim village, the elders are the most important people. After school, we were tinkering with something, and the grandfather was rustling around behind the bathhouse; he walked with a cane. Around four o'clock, we heard the men returning from work on the street. My friend's father swore because his combine harvester had broken down, using a bad word.

The moment he stepped into the yard, the grandfather came out from behind the bathhouse, walked up to him, and silently hit him over the head with his cane. The man ducked, so the grandfather hit his shoulder. I thought the man would break the cane first and then the grandfather, but instead, he said, "Father, I'm sorry, the combine broke down." The grandfather replied, "I don't care what broke down. You came into the house, and besides, there are children here." The man said, "But I didn't see them." The grandfather countered, "I'm telling you, it doesn't matter, you entered the house. Leave all of that outside." I was eleven or twelve years old, and that memory stuck with me forever: total respect for your elders.

<...> We had this one guy in the village named Nikolai, whose vocabulary consisted of about ninety percent swear words, but he strung them together very rhythmically. At one point, I realized that one of his swear words meant that an object had vanished or disappeared. I really liked the word. When I lost one of my father's tools, I said, "Well, I was playing and playing, and now it's... [vanished]." My father looked at me and said, "If you ever say that word again..." and he just stopped there. What would have happened to me, I don't know. But I learned right then and there that the word was forbidden. To this day, my father never swears in my presence.

A World of Books and Dreams

I started reading in the first grade; we had a very good library in the village. I think I read three or four books a week. At night, since there was no electricity yet, we sat with lamps. Kerosene was expensive, and we had flashlights. I would read under the blanket, and my grandmother and mother would scold me: "You'll ruin your eyesight, you shouldn't read so much!" My father never scolded me. I read a vast amount. And I lived half in reality, half in my dreams and the things I read about.

Contentment and Imagination

I remember a time when many people had motorcycles, but I didn't. It wouldn't have been bad to have one, but it wasn't a life-or-death desire. I spent my whole life being content with what I had. Whatever I lacked, I simply made up for in my imagination.

Not Understanding People

As a child, I couldn't read people well, and I still can't; to me, everyone was good. But if someone did something bad to me or shouted at me, it felt like total darkness, though such cases were rare.

The Fear of the Unknown

Adults often instill fears in children. Children like me should never be frightened. I remember I had to attend a Tatar school in a Tatar village starting from the fifth grade. We lived in tents there. To keep the children from running away, the camp counselors scared us by saying that Udmurts kidnap children. They said they would steal us, so we never went anywhere. And then I had a dream—I still see dreams in black and white, but that particular dream was in color, and I saw it about five times: the Udmurts arrived on a bus with axes, chasing us. Oh, the terror I endured!

Guarding the Tongue and Respecting Others

I never heard a single bad word about other people from my parents or my grandmother. My grandmother was sharp-tongued; if a neighbor started saying something bad about someone else, she would cut them off immediately. This is very important. If people had been gossiping and speaking ill of others in front of me, I probably would have been left with a lot of doubts about what people are truly like.

No matter where I travel, I treat people with respect. Consequently, they treat me the same way. Strangers treat me wonderfully because I don't go around making demands or throwing my weight around.

Leadership and Helping Others

I know that I am not a natural leader; I am a good follower and never scrambled for command or power, yet I was constantly appointed as class monitor, detachment leader, and chairman of the pioneer council.

<...> My father, mother, and grandmother all told me: "You need to be a boss!" And so I became one. They were incredibly hospitable people; they would never let anyone leave the house without feeding them, or at least serving them some tea. Their understanding stuck with me: a boss isn't there just to boss people around, but to help them.

Hypertrophied Empathy and the Fear of Doing Wrong

My pity for people is hypertrophied—exaggerated to an extreme degree. I don't feel sorry for myself; I am ready to sacrifice myself just so another person doesn't suffer, and especially so they don't suffer because of me. I would sooner give up my own head. I can overthink things and imagine that I did something bad to someone, making up scenarios in my mind. I suffer terribly when this happens; it's a very heavy state of mind.

Whenever we had to lay people off, I would go and argue with the management, proving my point and saying, "Lay me off instead. If you think there are redundant people in my department, then lay me off. All of my people are busy with work."

You cannot be a scoundrel in life; it will always catch up to you. If it doesn't affect you, it will affect your children. For people who commit evil against someone, that evil will inevitably return, and it is their children who will suffer. I have this unshakeable belief stuck in my head.

Misunderstood Guilt and Family Discipline

There was an interesting thing that happened when we boys were lined up to find out who was to blame for something. Apparently, whenever people looked at me with suspicion, a look of guilt would instantly appear on my face. Everyone would immediately go, "He did it." In those moments, I wouldn’t even say "No."

I remember we got whipped once. A neighbor saw us smoking—or trying to smoke. After that, my father quit smoking cold turkey, even though he had been smoking for I don't know how many years. No one tortured us, and they didn't try to investigate. I was blamed: "He’s the ringleader, he did it." There were no interrogations; my parents didn't try to dig into anything.

I don’t ever remember my mother punishing me, except for one time when she whipped us: she was sobbing her eyes out, while we didn't cry at all. She was striking us with switches, not a belt. She was crying, and we felt absolute terror just from seeing her cry—because we had let her down, we had compromised her.

Boundaries Without Punishment

Once, I read an article on how to make a spear. Following all the rules, I dug up a root, straightened it out, and basically crafted a spear. But where could I test it? I noticed my father had covered the root cellar with roofing slate. Back then, slate was made of cardboard soaked in tar. I completely pulverized the entire roof of the cellar; it simply never crossed my mind that I shouldn't do it. My brother was doing it too, as I recall. My father noticed it, but there were no switches, no whipping at all.

I was never humiliated. When I was in the fifth grade, my parents actually started consulting with me and asking for my advice.

Unspoken Love and the Power of Gentleness

In my childhood, it wasn't customary to tell children that you loved them. Although my father spoke very little, sometimes he would simply pat me on the head. I feel like that warmth has stayed with me to this day. Nowadays, when I try to show that same warmth to my son, I can see him grow wings. It turns out that when you pat him on the head, it brings warmth to both of us.

Whenever I was ordered to do something in a commanding tone, I would explode inside—an immediate mental anchor would drop. My teachers, for instance, never forced me to do things like draw; they were very well-mannered and would ask nicely instead. They would say, "Valera, this really needs to be done," or "Do this, please." Back in my village, I had never even heard the word "please" from my elders.

Games, Empathy, and A Dislike for Violence

I read a lot and was constantly organizing new games for the kids. I was good at everything: playing lapta (a traditional bat-and-ball game), hitting targets—I never missed. Once, I read a lot about Native Americans. I don't know, I must have been seven or eight years old at the time. I made a bow and hit a sparrow on my very first try. That little sparrow was dying in my hands, and I still remember it to this day. I cried; its head was dangling because I had hit it in the neck. It was opening its mouth, and I thought it wanted a drink, so I tried giving it water. It died, and I never picked up a bow again. I organized other games instead.

I feel sorry for people—for everyone around me who is having a hard time. In school, both adults and children treated me with great respect.

I only got into a fight about twice. The first fight happened like this: I had read a lot about martial arts, and my brother and I started practicing techniques. I locked horns with a boy who was a year older than me. As we fell, I threw him over myself using my leg, but I didn’t realize there was a ravine right behind us. He flew right into it and almost broke his neck. After that, the boys knew I was studying Sambo, so they didn't really bother me, and I never escalated tensions myself.

In the summer I enjoyed riding my bike, and in the winter, skiing.

To this day, I cannot fathom how someone can punch a person in the face. I saw it in the village when people fought. Back then, they fought until the first blood; as soon as the first blood appeared, it was over. And if a person fell, no one would touch him. I still can't watch action movies. No one has ever hit me in the face, I don’t remember anything like that. I know it must be painful. If I can't bear to watch livestock being slaughtered, then I certainly can't imagine hitting a human being, especially in the face.

A child like that definitely shouldn't be put into boxing. Children like that need movement: running, skiing—and it's good if someone is running ahead of you, but not behind you. There is an excitement in catching up.

Handiwork

I remember that in my childhood, tasks that required working with my hands always turned out well for me. In the seventh grade, when I was about thirteen and we had only just started studying physics, my father built a new log house by himself in two days. The local men gathered and put the house up; that's how it's always done in the village. As for the wiring—without even knowing electricity yet—I ran it everywhere myself, because there was only one electrician for the whole village. The only thing I couldn't do was connect it to the meter.

My father kept an eye on how I was doing; I tinkered with it for two days. It was interesting to me. The electrician looked at it and asked my father, "Vasya, did you do this?" My father replied, "No, Fedot, my son did." The man was surprised: "Come on, that can't be!" I had done it more economically than the textbook method; if I had known the formal science, I would have had to waste more wires.

Hard Work

A child like me must never be pressured. If they had forced me, if they hadn't left me alone in the third grade, I probably would have continued to be a poor student.

My grandmother was very authoritarian, but she was a massive hard worker, and she set an example for me. Her nickname in the village was "Myself," because she always said, "Myself, myself." Her husband went to the front lines in 1941, and they only received one letter: "We are going into battle tomorrow." After that, a notice arrived stating he was missing in action. I always inherited my grandmother’s attitude toward work. My mother used to say, "Nothing to do? Go work! And if you don't want to work, get out of my sight, don't just stand there!"

As far as I can remember, my drive to finish what I start came from my grandmother. She was commanding and forced me to see everything through to the end whenever I was struggling with something. She always used the neighbor who became a "general" as an example. I truly lucked out with both my parents and my teachers.

Leading Style

When it comes to my subordinates, if I see a complete mess, I will confront them, demand compliance, and yell. I know that some hate me and some fear me, but everyone respects me—they tell me so themselves.

Once, I fired a man. That was the first time I ever had to do that. About two years later, we bumped into each other on the street, and he actually thanked me for firing him. Later, I removed a site supervisor from his position because he tried to deceive me. I had sent him to check that people weren't stealing, but not only did he fail to stop them, he tried to do the exact same thing himself. I demoted him to a regular laborer. A person like that loses my trust, and to me, they cease to exist.

I tend to punish people in the heat of the moment, and then I suffer over it for a long time afterward, thinking once I've cooled down: "Why did I do that? I shouldn't have." At the exact moment I make the decision, it feels just and fair. Yet, so far, none of the people who suffered from my decisions have ever blamed me; quite the contrary, they usually end up being grateful in some way.

Earning the Respect of the Workforce

I was very strict at my workstation because when I first took over the sector, there were a lot of defective products. I pushed the workers hard, though I never yelled; instead, I would start speaking to them very quietly. When you yell at someone, they get scared the first time, but eventually, they stop paying attention to you altogether. But when you speak softly, so that they have to strain just to hear you, it gets through much faster, and they realize that the person is in a state of great anger. Within a year, I managed to get the workers to fix every single defect. If someone was studying, I always let them leave for their exams, regardless of any problems we had. Rumors reached me that I had broken everyone to my will, but there was simply no other way.

When I was transferring to a new sector, my strictest foreman—whom I had forced to write up a formal complaint and a fine against herself after just a week of working together—came running to me. She was genuinely sorry that I was being reassigned. I handed the write-up back to her and said, "Here, keep it as a souvenir."

I never allowed any of the higher bosses to punish my subordinates: "Punish me instead, this is my oversight." When I left, the workers bought and gifted me a pair of binoculars. I was stunned; I thought they would be happy to see me go because the guy replacing me was incredibly soft. But the workers said, "What, do you think we are fools or cattle? We see things. Yes, you drove us hard, but you worked from seven to seven right alongside us."

The First Drink with Father

The first time my father and I shared a drink sitting side by side, I was thirty years old. I had never seen him tipsy before, but it turned out that he would come home from work and have fifty grams of vodka—he drove a tractor and would be frozen solid in the winter. But we never saw it.

Source: How to Raise a Child Without Complexes by O. Mikhevnina