A Leader and His Words

Last night, I am reminded of one very important thing:

As you move up the ladder of leadership, there are a number of things

that you do less, and, on the other hand, some things that you do more.

To name a few, here goes:

 

1.       You do less of the actual work; you do more of managing your people and resources.

2.      You do less of thinking only about yourself; you do more on managing leaves, MCs, holidays, shutdowns, and the like.

3.      You do less of planning only for yourself; you do more of planning for your team.

4.      You do less of thinking only of your own improvement; you do more of thinking how to develop your team.

5.       You do less of thinking how you can be recognized; you do more of recommending your people for recognition.

6.      You do less of excusing yourself over some mistakes; you get more of having to explain, arrest, lock and prevent recurrence of your subordinates’ mistakes, and also for your own.

7.      You do less of upward-only communication; you do more of communication on both upward and downward directions.

8.      You do less of skills development only; you do more of work skills and interpersonal skills development.

9.      You do less of the actual work; you get to attend meetings, and more of it as you progress along.

10.   You are no longer in the limelight of breakthroughs; 95% of recognition goes to your subordinate, and only 5% to you.

11.   On fiascos, your subordinate gets 5% of the blame, and you get the remaining 95%.

12.   At the bottom of the ladder, you can talk as much, and your words don’t carry much weight. At the top of the ladder, every word you say has its weight that can change the company’s direction, as well as the shareholders’ decision.

 

Some managers are born, while others are made. Also, some managers are purely skills developer, dealing only with enhancing workers’ skills and knowledge necessary for the trade, while others are people developer, dealing with skills and knowledge and adding to that interpersonal skills, and identifying potentials of the subordinate that will otherwise remain hidden and untapped. This hidden potential, in most cases, is the slumbering ability to be a leader and people developer as well.

 

For point #12, I believe that didn’t change much for Christ. His words carried much and meant much before he became a man. When he created the universe, one word is enough. The visible was created out of the invisible. When he was born of a virgin, and became a man, and lived with men, his words still carried much and meant much. Even though he said, ‘talk is cheap’, he proved what he said by healing the leper and forgiving his sins (Mark 2:1-12). Finally, as his earthly mission was at the crux, he said, ‘It is finished!’ and that changed the world.

 

Today, this is what Our Daily Bread devotional is saying:

The miracles of Jesus identified Him as the Son of God, the Savior who had come to give His life for the sins of the world. His works and resurrection were not magic tricks, but miracles of love and grace.

 

A song by Peterson is fitly chosen to recap the text:

It took a miracle to put the stars in place;

It took a miracle to hang the world in space.

But when He saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole,

It took a miracle of love and grace!

 

To end, here’s the challenge, also lifted from Today’s ODB devotional:

Believe in God and you’ll believe in miracles; believe in His Son and you’ll experience one!