Prologue

Before Brad. Before Malone. Before Coach Andy and the tree and the roots and everything that follows in these pages.

Before any of it, there was my dad.

His name was Spence Lutz, and he was the greatest leader I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Not the most decorated. Not the most titled. Not the one with the biggest platform or the most impressive résumé. Just the greatest. The kind of great that you don't fully understand until you're older and you start looking around and realizing that what you grew up watching was actually rare.

My dad reflected the leadership of Jesus more than I ever could have imagined a person could. And I don't say that with polite loyalty the way sons sometimes talk about their fathers. I say it because it is simply, undeniably true, and because I think it's the most important thing I could tell you before you read a single word of this story.

He didn't lead from a title. He led from love.

Not a soft, passive, say-the-right-things kind of love. I mean the kind the Greeks called agape - a love that is chosen, selfless, and completely unconcerned with what it gets in return. A love that shows up the same way for the person at the top of the roster and the one at the bottom. The same way in a boardroom and a living room. The same way when it's convenient and when it costs something.

That was Spence Lutz.

He had a way of making every person in the room feel like the most important person in the room, not because he was performing it, but because he genuinely believed it. He was patient in a way that didn't feel forced. He was present in a way that made you feel seen. He was humble in a way that the greatest leadership books in the world will tell you to be, but that very few people actually pull off when nobody is watching.

He pulled it off every single day.

I didn't learn leadership from a conference or a podcast or a book, though I've consumed plenty of all three. I learned it from watching a man live it. In the small moments and the hard ones. In the ones where nobody was watching and nothing was on the line. In the way he treated people, consistently and without condition, regardless of what they could do for him or whether they ever noticed at all.

That's agape leadership. And it doesn't belong to any one industry, any one title, or any one stage of life. It belongs to anyone willing to pick it up and carry it.

After a twenty-two month battle with brain cancer, my dad went home to be with Jesus.

I won't pretend that sentence gets easier to write. But what I know, what I hold onto, is that his legacy didn't end there. Legacies like his don't. They move forward through the people who were shaped by them, through the lives that carry the fingerprints of someone who loved well.

This book is one of the ways his legacy lives on.

Every time a coach decides to lead from love instead of fear, that's my dad. Every time a leader chooses to see the person in front of them instead of the problem in front of them, that's my dad. Every time someone realizes that the most powerful thing about their leadership isn't what they can control but who they can serve, that's him.

He is the reason I could write a book like this. Having him as a father was the most valuable leadership lesson I could have ever received. And this extended edition exists, in part, because I wanted to give you more of what he gave me, not just a story to read, but roots to grow.

So before you meet Brad and Malone and Coach Andy, I want to ask you something.

Think about the greatest leader you've ever been around. Maybe it was a coach. Maybe a parent, a mentor, a manager. Maybe someone who never held an impressive title but whose influence reached further than any org chart could measure.

What made them great?

I'd be willing to bet it wasn't their authority. It wasn't their record or their reputation or their ability to demand results. It was the way they made people feel. It was the consistency between who they were in public and who they were when the pressure was on. It was the way they loved people, not as a strategy, but as a conviction.

That's what this book is about.

That's what Root Work is about, the reflection questions and short notes you'll find at the end of each chapter, designed to help you slow down and go deeper. To stop and ask not just what did I just read, but what does this have to do with me, my team, and the way I lead right now?

The story ahead will do its work. But the root work is yours to do.

My dad did his. Every single day, without fanfare, without needing anyone to notice.

I hope this book honors him.

And I hope it grows something in you.

 

Root Work: Prologue

Before you begin the story, take a few minutes with these questions. Write them down. Sit with them. There are no wrong answers, only honest ones.

Who is the greatest leader you've ever been around? What specifically made them great, and how much of it had to do with their title or authority?

Think about the way that person loved and led people. What would it look like to bring even a fraction of that into how you lead today?

Agape love, selfless, chosen, unconditional, is easy to admire and hard to practice. Where in your leadership is love currently conditional? Where does it still depend on results, obedience, or appreciation?

What is one thing you want to carry with you through this entire book, one intention for the kind of leader you want to become by the time you reach the last page?