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There are times when all you can do is sit and look at the screen and remember. This morning was one of those.

One of the first emails I opened told me that Leonard Tompkins, my mentor and my friend has died. The last time I saw Leonard he ruined one of my suits.

I had left his company years before, but when I was in the area of Kent, Ohio, I would call and if Leonard was there, I'd stop by for a visit. I wish I'd done that more often and worked harder to stay in touch.

On that day, I was coming from a speech, wearing a suit. I parked outside and wound through the warren of hallways to Leonard's office overlooking the yard filled with machinery and trucks.

He was wearing coveralls. When I came up the short stairs into his office he rose out of his chair with his incredible smile on his face and gave me a huge hug.

Before the hug, his coveralls were plastered with grease. After the hug the grease was evenly distributed between his coveralls and my suit. I ultimately threw the suit away.

I thought about that incident and so many others while I walked the dog this morning. I've been blessed to know a lot of exceptional people in my life. Leonard was one of the most exceptional. Here are two examples of why.

In her email, Leonard's granddaughter,  Mwenza, described him as "a tough man with a rough exterior but with a really good heart." He was a tough man in a tough, dirty and dangerous business. But he was always helping people in large and small ways.

There was a man who had driven for Leonard a few years before. Leonard found out that the man had cancer and was dying. So Leonard arranged to have him transported across the country, back to his home state, so he could die there, near family.

It was hugely expensive. That didn't matter. The man was a friend. He needed help.

Then there was the cold February night that we spent in a boxcar on a siding. Leonard was moving some machinery for a Mexican company. There was a dispute about the contract.

Leonard thought the company would try to move the machinery off his siding during the night. So we sat in the cold boxcar with brandy and shotguns all night, just in case.

Leonard had come a long way. He'd started a company and grown it. He'd made some investments. He was successful by most people's measure.

That's not easy for anyone. For a Black man in those times and that place, it was even harder.

But that's not what he talked about. He talked about the future. He talked about opportunities. He talked about what he wanted to do next.

Leonard had a strategy. But he never had a strategic plan. The strategy was clear enough that he could spot an opportunity when it popped up. It was flexible enough to change when it needed to.

He spent his time and energy on making the strategy work. He didn't waste time coming up with grand new schemes. Instead he worked hard and kept scanning for opportunity.

No matter what he did, people were important. Mostly he gave them opportunities. And if you were his friend, you could always count on his smile when you came into the room and his unique laugh and a bear hug. Now I wish I'd kept the suit.

Boss's Bottom Line

Here are some lessons I learned from Leonard.

Strategy should be simple and something your work at implementing.

There will be difficulties. Deal with them.

No matter how rough your exterior, work to maintain a really good heart.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.