Principles of Leadership - Get Out of Their Way Part 1

 

This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters.

During 2022, my theme has been “10 Principles of Spiritual Leadership”.  In my previous two podcasts, we took a brief break from this series as I shared some thoughts from Dr. Daryl McCarthy about the Character of a Leader, using 2 Corinthians 4 as his text.  If you missed those, I encourage you to find those podcasts and listen to them.  

Today, we resume this leadership series; our topic is “Get out of their way!”    

Firstly, please allow me to explain what I do not mean by this statement.  I’ve had supervisors who provided little or no guidance or direction.  I felt like they simply left me to figure things out on my own.  They failed to “Share the Vision” (principle #1) or “Define the Expectations” (principle #3).  

I recall a time when I and my fellow church elders were asked to mediate a meeting between our church lead pastor and his staff.  One of the staff spoke up and said, “I am ready to charge a hill; I need to know what hill to charge.”  You see, he did not know his pastor’s vision.  

So, what do I mean by the leadership principle, “Get out of their way”?  There are a couple of points; I’ll address the first one in this podcast. 

Another way of expressing this principle is “Don’t Micro-Manage”!  Effective leaders delegate tasks (and authority, as we learned in principle #6), but they do not give every little detail regarding how to accomplish those tasks.  They do not – literally or figuratively – watch over the shoulder of others to ensure that the task is carried out exactly as they would do or exactly as they instructed.  

Effective leaders allow followers, or subordinates, to determine their best or most effective way of accomplishing the task.  Think of the story found in I Samuel 17:38-39 where David went out to fight the giant, Goliath.  King Saul initially tried to dress David in Saul’s armor.  Think how the story would have turned out differently had David been weighted down by this heavy equipment.  Instead, King Saul allowed David the flexibility, and authority, to decide how best David would fight.  Godly leaders need to take a similar approach.  

An American President, Theodore Roosevelt, is quoted as saying, “The best [leader] is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”  That is good counsel for godly leaders. 

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.