I had a conversation with a friend who was trying to lead a bunch of people at his workplace through a difficult time. He said he tried everything to get them onside but it hasn’t worked and then he dropped the bombshell. This is how the conversation rolled
Him: ‘I guess I just don’t like them.’
Me: ‘You don’t like them? What do you feel towards them?’
Him: ‘Good question! I guess not much at all. I don’t really like them and I don’t feel anything for them.’
Me: ‘Do you love them’
Him: ‘Hell no.’
Me: ‘Would you do anything for them outside of your job?’
Him: ‘Hans, you are the pastor I am just an engineer!’
I said to my friend that he could never lead this group of people, because Leadership is all about relationships of service.
If I don’t love I will never lead.
That doesn’t mean you have to like them and want to hang out with them. I have lead teams where I wouldn’t consider the people in those teams friends but I have loved them and have tried to show them this.
What’s the difference? The Bible says this ‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers’ Notice how practical the definition is? The laying down of your life constitutes the very heart of love that you are showing towards a person.
If you want to lead you will love.
So,
Do you communicate well to your followers?
Do you ask them how they are and really want to know how they are?
When was the last time you sat down with someone and did nothing but listen?
When was the last time you lovingly said something hard to someone because they needed to hear it?
When was the last time you held the people around you up in prayer?
When did you last weep with the people around you?
When did you last do something like go to the movies with them on your day off?
I am asking myself these questions. Because I think if I communicate with, weep with, listen to, pray for, rebuke gently, Give my time to my followers I am loving them and I am showing that I love them. So my friend who I was talking to might not have been able to like the people around him but he could have loved them.
What about you? Do you love the people you are trying to lead?
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Oh Hans...this is such a hard thing to do..I agree completely with your statements though! I know from leading ministry it is sometimes hard to distinguish the right feelings you have inside for the people that you lead. I know one of my teams where there have been people who have made me angry,upset, sad and all other sorts of feelings but had to continue leading them..I needed to continue loving them and to look past what my feelings were, that was when I was able to see deep down what was going on in their lives. Which intern explained why they didn't have many loving people around them on a deeper level.
ReplyDeleteJesse, were you really 'leading' them, or serving them in biblical fashion? I ask this because whenever people talk of leading in a church context, my mind immediately goes to Matt 20:25, 23:7ff, 1 Cor 12, etc.
ReplyDeleteOur leader is Christ, all we do is minister as we are led in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Perhaps the role you had was convenor, or coordinator...or even just 'minister' (servant) but I am sceptical that it was 'leader', or even could be in a healthy church body.
Please forgive, me but your language betrays you, it seems, it is concentrated upon you, which is a criticism of 'leadership' in some of the management literature. I posted a link to an article by the McGill management academic Mintzberg where he criticised 'leaderhip' thinking for its 'me-centredness', rather than its community-centredness.
We in the church should above all be thinking, talking and demonstrating the dispersed gifting of the Holy Spirit and the shared endeavour it is to participate in the body of Christ.
The language of 'leader' is foreign, as far as I read it, to the NT, given the contemporary connotation of the word.