“I was following him,” I said.
“Why? Because he was the leader?”
“You know my rebellious spirit better than that. I followed him because I trusted him.”
“If he wasn’t in charge, what made you trust him?”
“He was sure. I can’t explain it. He just told us what we needed to do and he seemed so comfortable and decisive that I knew I should do it.”
Have you ever had a leader like that? Someone who didn’t necessarily have the authority or position to lead, but who was just a leader?
Managers Are Not Necessarily Leaders
In business I have found many bosses, but few leaders. It seems our businesses are filled with people who manage, order, ignore, and ask. But when was the last time you found someone:
- who was confident, yet humble
- who was strong, yet gentle
- who was decisive, yet concerned
- who led like they were meant to be followed!
I long to find leadership of this kind and I pray to be this leader.
As a Christian business owner I feel it is by default that we are in charge. Yet sometimes we feel inadequate to lead.
I want to share two heart felt thoughts on this:
- It is our responsibility as business owners to work on our leadership ability because as long as we own the business we are in a leadership role.
- We have a significant advantage because we have the Holy Spirit guiding us.
Like It Or Not, You Are a Leader
When we chose to open our business we committed to our leadership role. How would you like to hire someone to do accounting and then have them say, but I am not good with details. Being detail oriented is implied in accounting. You would want the person to work on this – yes?
Well you are the head person in your own business and you owe it to God, your employees, and your customers to be a good leader.
Many leadership skills can be learned and practiced. I suggest creating a development plan for yourself in this area, and that your efforts in improving would glorify God.
Carried Out by the Spirit
I always believe we need to do our part, but we have such a secret weapon as a Christian. I can’t even count the times the Holy Spirit has pushed me out of the way and worked through me.
Sometimes our leadership is compromised just by our lack of confidence. We aren’t the first ones to fear our leadership responsibilities. I think we are in good company with Moses, Esther, Jonah, Gideon and many others in scripture who were not confident that they were up to the plans God had for them.
Just as God was there for these biblical leaders He will be there for us. Our part is to study leadership and practice leadership skills. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to work through us and pray for wisdom and discernment.
In the end, we need to trust that God will do His part of the equation.
A Leader Walking with God
We already know that without God we can not do the things that are bigger than us. But you know as well as I that when we find a leader who
…is confident, yet humble.
…is strong, yet gentle.
…is decisive, yet concerned.
…we want to follow!
We also know that this is a leader walking with God.
Have you ever had this kind of leader?
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31
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I was just in a discussion about this distinction between managers and leaders. Manager are the people charged with the administration and too often we also look to them to be the leaders. Many managers just don thave the skill set to do this.
Instead, we need to find those natural leaders and enpower them to move the unit along.
It is definitely a rare thing to find a natural leader with excellent management skills or vice versa. That is why those who do both make the big bucks!