If You Want to Lead, You've Got to Care

APRIL 27, 2012 The Cure for Workplace Misery: A Manager Who Cares About Your Development 60% of U.S. government employees studied by Gallup say they don't clearly know what's expected of them at work. That's because a lot of government workers are stuck with lousy managers, according to Jim Clifton, Gallup's CEO. If an organization hires managers who care about employees' development, workplace misery magically disappears, Clifton says. Source: What Makes Workplaces Miserable

Whether you're a leader or a manager, you get a lot more accomplished when people know that you care about them!

Leaders who view people as game pieces to be manipulated delude themselves with the notion that by their depersonalizing "efficiences," they will accomplish more.

Impersonal or harsh leaders may score temporary spikes in measurable outputs--even when the leaders in question are pastors. But such "leadership" will never sustain positive results.

Good leadership entails viewing those being led as people with lives, families, dreams, and goals.

I recently read Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by Church Starts by Bill Easum and Jim Griffith. It was interesting for me to read because I was a church planter for seventeen years and believe me, to lesser or greater extents, consciously or unconsciously, I made every single one of the ten mistakes Easum and Griffith mention!

One of the mistakes mentioned though, is especially interesting: So focusing on Jesus' great commission--attracting new believers to Christ--that His great commandment--loving God and loving others--is forgotten.

Without a loving consideration of the people you seek to lead to Christ, you won't make any disciples, no matter how many people come to your church.

The number one fact every leader must remember is a principle I first heard enunciated by pastor and leadership guru John Maxwell: If nobody is following, you're not a leader. And I would add: You're not a leader if you haven't demonstrated concern about and a commitment to the people you would lead.