The basic way to see people for who they are is by looking at the fruit they provide in their lives and by doing so you will learn how to correctly asses others also judge people by the results of their actions. The book on (pg 23) gives the example of how a person was late for work, but it was out of his control because of car accident, however he is still late regardless which is unfortunate. There are circumstances where this process is drawn out and its not for some time before you see the fruit of peoples actions in their lives. Something the books points out on pg. 27 is "the other examples of "trees" and "promised fruit": 1) Parents believe it's important to be with their children, but spend no time with them;(no fruit-question the promise). 2) A friend clams to care for others, and during the week does several tasks such as visiting people in the hospital, baking casseroles for sick neighbors, etc;(very evident fruit-trust the promise). 3) An individual is supposed to be able to come up with new and better ways of doing things, never does so, but always has very good reason for not doing so;(no fruit, great intentions though-question the promise)." One of the harder challenges is assessing people's strength then matching that with the needs as it's not always a clear path for getting their and may take some time before they have a clear understanding of this looks like.
This section reminds me of times in the military when dealing with new leadership specifically officers who had a chip on their shoulder and wanted to prove that they new what was best for us. One person comes to mind specifically and he was a relatively new 2nd LT and right away he was a big hit with the younger crowd of enlisted or those who liked to hit the gym, however we started to have issues with him because of fraternization with the enlisted. The senior enlisted warned him of his actions, even our C.O. wrote him up for fraternization, he became a liability later on in the tour as he took favorites, but then the people who were his favorites began to dislike him. He couldn't follow through on the promises or be trusted because he was a liability with how he acted therefore wasn't trusted by many of us. I respected his rank and authority, but not him or his actions as a leader, however he did have some redeeming qualities ie preventing stupidity from rolling down hill on to us.
Pages 502-509 hit on specifically accountability and the need to have someone holding you or you holding them accountable, in fact in businesses this is almost necessary because work needs to get done. Accountability is what I would refer to as a necessary evil because no one likes it, but we all need it regardless of what position we are, and if you're the leader then you need to hold the people who report to you accountable.
Accountability is one of those things where you can save yourself a lot headaches if you do it right the first time when setting it up, my first mentor held me accountable in a way that really challenged me. When we would meet he would ask me like: How's the devotional time or What do you thinking God is speaking to you? In essence it's still in play today when I go through life, but there is one piece I will be honest on and I do believe that I should be putting more time in my relationship with God because he is our source for everything. Accountability sucks because we don't like asking the hard questions especially for guys in terms of purity, I know because I had people who kept me accountable for purity. It sucked asking those questions and it's not easy at all, but completely necessary, the same goes for leaders.
Managing a staff is as hard as you think, as looking at this chapter you see all the different aspects of working with staff from what you expect of them to dealing with terms of pay then mediating conflict between staff members. These are all aspects of managing staff and it's not as glorious as it may seem, there is a lot of work that goes into this and this is when dealing with people you realize how much it sucks.
I've been around enough leaders to see how a good leader manages a staff versus how a bad leader manages a staff or just personal under him. There was a period where I was providing child care for a Women's Bible study and occasionally I would have one or two kids helping me so we would manage working with the children that we had. Occasionally there was conflict between me and the older of the two kids and occasionally I would have to be that authoritative leader/ manager versus my typical style which is here's what I expect, this is what needs to happen, and working with them as a team and individually. It was a great experience because that was one of the first times I was in charge of people outside the military. We handled everything rather well from kids getting fingers slammed on toys to peed pants, and I would 99% we didn't have any issues working together. Honestly it kinda clued me in on parenting kids as well as managing people under you because you find out right away with what works or what doesn't.
Nathan Fair is a musician that served in Iraq. The lyrics to his songs made me think of you. I am not sure if watching his music videos would be a good idea. Lots of in Iraq stuff and I'd hate to cause you steps backwards in the amazing healing you've done. So maybe Google his lyrics .. Play it on YouTube without watching the movie. Hope all is well.
ReplyDeleteI know who Nathan Fair is and he has some solid songs. Thanks.
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