Leader- Equip or Deprive Those Are Your Options
A tipping point in personal development happens when you perform your job better because you place people around you that challenge you to do better. Equipping others is important because rarely can one person do something truly great without the help of another. What you teach a person today will help to add fuel to that person in reaching their own leadership potential tomorrow.
[Tweet “Everyone works best and achieves more by working as a team.”]
In the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul tells us that we should “walk” in a way that is “worthy” of the role God has called us. Even though Paul is in prison he is urging and fostering unity among a diverse population in Ephesus. He reminds the Ephesians of the attitude they are to poses as people and as believers in Christ. Each of us have been given by God specific skills and talents that serve the body of Christ. Paul communicates that there is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father. We have been given grace and gifts. We are at our best when we serve others out of our own gifted-ness from God. God has given us the ability and the privilege to build His team. God desires all people to be reconciled (reunited) with Him, on His team. God’s “Plan A” for building a diverse and unified family is the church. We can only achieve this by equipping each other with the truth of the gospel.
Teams work best when everyone on the team contributes and plays off the other players weaknesses and strengths. Paul is teaching us how to build a team and what a team may look like, whether a team of volunteers or paid employees. A team works best when there is a collaboration of people with different backgrounds, personalities, preferences, styles and abilities working together for a common goal. Jesus commanded us in the book of Matthew to “Go and make disciples.” What is true in the church can also be true in the workplace.
[Tweet “Equipping people is extremely tough. It can be very tiresome, but it produces the best results.”]
A leaders job is to elevate their perspective so they can equip others for work on the ground. The question for most leaders isn’t why should I equip my team, but how. John Maxwell says there are ten steps you can take to invest in your team.
1. Make the decision to build a team- You have to decided that the people on the team are worth equipping and developing.
2. Gather the best team possible- Elevate the potential.
3. Pay the price to develop the team- Ensure the team has the resources grow.
4. Do things together as a team- Build community.
5. Empower team members with responsibility and authority- Raise up new potential leaders.
6. Give credit for success to the team- Lift Morale.
7. Watch to see that the investment in the team is paying off- Accountability.
8. Stop your investment in players who do not grow- Eliminate greater loss for the team.
9. Create new opportunities for the team- Allow room for the team to stretch.
10. Give the team the best possible chance to succeed- Guarantees the team a high return.
“There is no problem we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.” -President Lyndon Johnson
We have the option to either equip others and teach them valuable life skills or deprive them of the knowledge that someone else shared with us. If we choose to not teach or multiply ourselves we will eventually have no one to follow us. A leader without any followers is not leading anyone.
Questions to consider:
Am I building people, or building my kingdom and using people to do so?
Am I asking the right questions to develop the right relationships?
Is my investment in my team worth my time?
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