The house in which I grew up was probably close to 100 years old. The plaster walls had been papered over four or five times. In places, the wallpaper was a half-inch thick.

Dad rented a steamer and we spent many hours softening the many layers and scraping them off with a putty knife. I, along with my brothers, Joe and Jack, all put our time in on the nasty task.

When the job was completed, we found smooth plaster underneath. The hallway was painted a pretty light green. Elsewhere, there were long cracks resembling bolts of lightning.

Mom decided she would paper the living room. First, she made a thick paste out of flour and water. We started with the ceiling, measuring the room width and cutting lengths of paper to fit. Then, a liberal smear of the paste was adhered. Mom climbed a ladder to carefully attach the paper while I, standing in the middle of the room, held the other end of the paper high in the air with a broom. Quickly Mom moved the ladder again and again to press the paper to the ceiling. Finally, one whole strip was in place. I dropped my aching arms that had lost all feeling. One strip done, and 12 to go.

With each of the boys taking turns, we finished the ceiling or you might say, it finished us. The task for the next day was the walls. This job was not as physically draining but the pattern had to be matched exactly and tightly fitted to make the seams invisible.

When we finished, we all beamed with pride at our handiwork. Mom, then, eyed a bedroom and the next weekend we repeated the work there. Two more bedrooms, the kitchen, and the bathroom followed. We perfected our technique with each room. Three years later, we repeated the whole process and yet another replication when a couple of other years went by. There was an old vent hole in the floor of the bedroom extending through the living room ceiling. It was usually covered with a metal grate but for some reason had been left off allowing my sister, Sylvia, to step through the ceiling paper. This accident caused a fourth papering of the living room ceiling.

This job was only one of many different, challenging tasks that old farm held for us. When the job was inside, Mom was the leader. Most outside jobs were the domain of Dad’s leadership. At work, the strengths of different leaders vary. It is important to understand and tap those strengths. Trying to make a leader a jack-of-all-trades is less effective than utilizing and capitalizing on their strengths. Leaders have the greatest potential for improvement in their strengths rather than their weaknesses.

R. Glenn Ray, Ph.D., is the president of RayCom Learning. To learn more about Ray’s completely revised, third printing of The Facilitative Leader: Behaviors that Enable Success, visit his Web site, www.raycomlearning.com or call him at 740-629-4536. Everyday Leadership appears each Wednesday on the Business page.