Leadership Lesson Series: Taking A Que From Nature

"Manage an organization as nature would: A) Show neither malice nor pity. B) Abhor a vacuum, whether of power or action." - Richard S. Sloma No-Nonsense Management


Nature offers many lessons on good leadership. One of the most important is never let emotion cloud your judgement and decisions. You must show equal impartiality to all those who you lead. Once you let emotion influence your judgement, it is extremely difficult to remove it again. Not only is it hard for you to change your thinking back to that of impartiality, but your followers will expect and try to pressure you to make emotional decisions that benefit them. Emotion is a powerful human factor that leads to bad and one-sided decisions. Followers look to you to make the hard decisions that are in everyone's best interest. You can and should express empathy and understanding, you aught to be polite and respectful, but at the end of the day, an emotional decision will always come back to bite.

Another lesson is to despise a vacuum. A gap in power or action leaves a dangerous space that can quickly cause trouble. When followers sense true weakness in their leader, someone is likely to take advantage of it. True power is not control, but strength. In nature, followers always favor the strong. For leaders, a power gap often comes when they are indecisive or neglect to enforce the rules. Nature is ALWAYS decisive and NEVER neglects the rules. Of course human rules can become outdated unlike the rules of nature. So a good leader knows when to break or ignore a rule, but this is rare, not the norm. And the decision to do so must be made emphatically and never based purely on emotion. A decision to break or ignore a rule should be fair and practical.

Inaction, or a gap in action, is likewise a bane to good leadership. Inaction by a leader is often a sign of weak leadership and leaves a power gap just waiting to be filled. Inaction on the part of followers should not be tolerated, especially when in regard to their duties. Nature shows little mercy to the lazy. When you sense inaction, intervene personally. This demonstrates power which motivates action. Create a reasonable timetable for the desired action to provide accountability. A general time of inaction with noting to do is also a concern. Boredom and inactivity are a recipe for trouble. This is especially true when working with youth and young people who typically do not have fully developed reasoning skills. Always be prepared with some easy ways to fill a void of inactive time.

A third lesson that nature teaches well is that change is inevitable. Change is often a good thing, although often uncomfortable. Nature holds the key to appropriate change. Most of the time it should be slow and incremental. Too slow and people will become complacent. Too fast and some may be left behind. Yet, sometimes rapid and drastic change is beneficial. Change should be expected by both leaders and followers. This is called flexibility. The more flexible you are to change the better leader you will be.

Lastly, promote growth. Nearly everything in nature promotes growth, even death. A good leader promotes the growth of their organization or group and also those they lead along with themselves. When followers understand that you desire their personal growth as well as that of your own or your organization's, they will willingly follow. You have given them a vested interest. At times a good leader no longer seeks their own growth but only that of others. In fact, this is the ultimate goal of leadership-- think wholly of the good and growth of those you lead. When focused on the growth of others you will inextricably be promoting your own growth and the growth of your organization or group.


Written by David F. Garner

Leadership Lessons Series: Leadership Compass

Are you a good leader? Are you a great leader? You might be the leader of an international ministry. You may have turned a failing ministry around. Maybe you are just a volunteer leader without much experience. Maybe you have led 25 people to baptism in the last year. Perhaps you have never led anyone to baptism. No matter, these are not the things that define great leaders!

As Jesus exemplified throughout his time on earth, being a great leader has nothing to do with results! In John 13 Jesus gives his disciples their last lesson in leadership before his death. Here we find the story of Jesus taking on the role of a servant and washing all the disciple’s feet. The lesson Jesus wanted them to remember was humility. All throughout scripture, humility is prized above all other leadership characteristics. When Jesus chose his disciples, he chose men of lowly status whom were not proud, but humble.

Humility entails many characteristics. The most important is an approachable, learning attitude. The polar opposite of humility is pride or arrogance. An attitude of superiority and knowing everything is incompatible with humility. Jesus was one of the greatest teachers to ever live. Yet he did not know everything and even admitted so. He said in Matthew 24:36 that he did not know the day nor the hour of his return to earth. Jesus was humble and displayed this through his dependence on his Father.

John F. Kennedy said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” A great leader is one who is continually learning to be better and do better! Specifically, a great leader is one who learns to lead well. Learning leadership skills is an important factor to learning to lead well. More importantly, learning what areas of leadership you can grow in is critical.
Do you know what areas of your leadership skills have room for growth? The best way to determine the answer to this question is with a leadership assessment.

There are many leadership assessments out there. My favorite is the Leadership Compass Self-Assessment. I like it for several reasons. First of all, there are only four categories. Additionally, rather than good or bad leadership skills, every person is seen as capable of growing in each direction. And perhaps the best reason, it is based on the directions of a compass! It’s as if it was made for outdoor enthusiasts!

The Leadership Compass draws from a book called the Four-Fold Way. The four directions in the book are described as warrior (north), healer (south), teacher (west), and visionary (east). The actual assessment uses more 21st century friendly categories. All directions have profound strengths and potential weaknesses, and each direction has a primary "human resource," including power (north), love (south), wisdom (west), and vision (east), as well as primary struggles, associated with loss or difficulty. Each person can access the gifts associated with each direction. So which directions do you tend toward? Try it out for yourself or your ministry team!

Click Here to view the Leadership Compass Self-Assessment

Sources

Kennedy, John F. "Leadership Quotes." BrainyQuote. Accessed September 03, 2016. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_leadership.html.

Written By David F Garner