A great post by Mac Lake - A must read!
Integrity is essential for leadership credibility. And for many leaders
the starting point of losing integrity is when they stop being honest with
themselves.
When you lead an organization, team
or church all eyes are on you. The success and progress of your organization is
strangely intertwined with your significance and self-esteem. This is what
makes it difficult for us to be honest with ourselves. There are times when
things are not going as well as we like. The organization is in decline,
resources are drying up or people are jumping ship. And instead of looking at
the cold hard facts we try to convince ourselves that everything is okay. We
find excuses for why things are not going well and worse we even put a spin to
make it look like these things are positive.
I was
talking with the church planter one day who told me about all the people
leaving his church. He put a positive slant on it by saying, “You know
we are just blessed to be sending people out.” But from everything I
could discern people were leaving because he was not a leader others wanted to
follow. When a leader is not honest with himself he will continue down the road
of mediocrity which ultimately leads to failure.
When we’re not honest with
ourselves…
§ we fail to grow in
essential areas that help us improve as leaders
§ we lose credibility and
influence with our followers
§ we’re unable to move
into a place of fruitfulness and fulfillment
§ we hinder the work God
wants to do in our own development
Remember Paul’s words in Romans
12:3 “Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your
evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.” Take
some time and ask yourself a few questions:
§ How are things going,
really?
§ Are there excuses I’ve
been making for poor performance or unacceptable results?
§ Am I fruitful and
fulfilled in what I am doing? If no, then why not?
§ Am I using my God-given
gifts? What’s the evidence of that?
§ Am I excited about the
future? If no, why not?
§ Am I actively listening
for the promptings of the Holy Spirit?
§ Do I feel challenged by
the work that I do or have i grown stale?
The man who is honest with himself about himself will walk in humility
and gain greater respect among men.
No comments:
Post a Comment