Читать книгу 101 Great Ideas for Growing Healthy Churches - John Nelson - Страница 29

Great Idea 19: Be Personally Effective

MALCOLM GRUNDY

If anyone sets his heart on being a leader, they desire a noble task

1 Timothy 3.1

Top Tip: You can fool some of the people some of the time but you shouldn’t be seeking to fool them at all.

Business Perspective: Successful organizations understand that all their members are intuitive and creative individuals. They know and understand the organization through its leaders and managers. To assume anything less of them will impact on profitability. Customers are also intuitive and make choices about which organizations they will support. This demands that organizational leaders and managers follow an ethical and moral vision.

Lead with integrity

The most important ingredient in effective leadership is integrity. People will not follow you if they can see through you and your policies.

They will be inspired if they can see into who you are and why you do what you say. Leadership with integrity has to be done in a way that allows leaders to be true to themselves and the work that they have been called to undertake.

Show you are committed

All leadership requires vision and commitment. Jesus led with integrity into the most difficult of places. He spoke of people not looking or turning back once they had put their hand to the plough. All those who take up new work wonder at some time if they have done the right thing. The job is never completely as described.

The people you work with, God’s gift in that place, are never quite as they appeared at first, but neither are the opportunities and the rewards. Pieces of work done with others in a committed and trusting atmosphere bring surprising and greater returns. This is the effective atmosphere in which committed people can feel God’s Spirit at work.

Be true to yourself

Effective personal leadership brings a sense of well-being. A leader with vision can be caricatured and undermined by critics who do not share the vision. Reactions have to demonstrate inclusiveness and the will and ability to listen to comment and criticism. Integrity can be known and understood through a sense of well-being. God was well pleased when Jesus was commissioned for ministry at his baptism. The Bible uses the same word for God’s pleasure and blessing at the scene of the transfiguration. Those whom God calls he also blesses with skills and abilities.

There are the varieties of gifts that Paul speaks of and which are present in every Christian community. Effective leaders use their own gifts to mobilize and liberate the gifts of others.

Know when to go

Leadership with integrity also demands the wisdom to know when to end a piece of work and when to leave a post or a church. Jesus warned that not everyone will always be welcomed in every community. Different skills are needed at different times and not all policies and personalities fit every situation. Occasionally the time comes to ‘shake the dust off one’s feet’ and go to another place. Effectiveness and integrity can be shown in appropriate endings and in choosing not to avoid difficult decisions.

Listen and learn

The measure of effectiveness is in open and trusting consultation. Leaders who listen, consult and who explain their decisions have the potential to be effective and to make many people feel they are in the right place at the right time.

For reflection and discussion

1 What is a leader?

2 What kind of leader was Jesus?

3 How is the leadership style of Jesus represented in your church?

4 How is the leadership style of Jesus represented in your own life?