Growing into Leadership (5)

“Listen…and I will give you some advice.”                               Ex 18:19 NIV
Growing into Leadership (5)
As a leader, it’s your job to see that things get done. But as the workload grows you will have to find people with talents equal to the task; otherwise you will stop growing. So what keeps us from seeking out the right people and delegating the right tasks to them? (1) Past hurts: Somebody let us down so we’re reluctant to trust anybody. (2) Pride: We don’t want to share the credit with others. (3) Perfectionism: We are not willing to be put at risk while people with potential learn on the job, so our vision bottlenecks and everything bogs down. Moses had this problem with Israel. Here’s how he solved it: “Moses’ father-in-law replied, ‘What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice…You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him…But select capable men from all the people…and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this…you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.’ Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said” (vv.17-24 NIV). If you want to be a good leader, follow his example!

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