The Wisdom of Patience

‘Go now, fosterson; and take the advice of the King. That will ever be wiser than your own counsel. Yet I do not think that you will long abide with us in Doriath beyond the coming of manhood. If in days to come you remember the words of Melian, it will be for your good: fear both the heat and the cold of your heart, and strive for patience, if you can.’

Some Valuable advice from Gary North

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north511.html

Improving our Leadership

According to missionary Hudson Taylor leaders should always strive to improve his or her leadership. He gave us six suggestions on how this is done:

1. Improve the character of the work.
2. Deepen the piety, devotion and success of the workers.
3. Remove stones of stumbling, if possible.
4. Oil the wheels where they stick.
5. Amend whatever is defective.
6. Supplement, as far as may be, what is lacking.

As always, easier said than done.

Fatigue, Hard Work, and Leadership

“The spirit of the welfare state does not produce leaders. If a Christian is not willing to rise early and work late, to expend greater effort in diligent study and faithful work, that person will not change a generation. Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the result of never getting tired.”

J. Oswald Chambers

My Prayer

“God, harden me against myself,
The coward with pathetic voice
Who craves for ease and rest and joy,
Myself, arch-traitor to myself,
My hollowest friend,
My deadliest foe,
My clog, whatever road I go.”

Amy Wilson Carmichael

QUOTABLE

“Looking forward into life and to those prospects which seem to be commensurate with your talents…you may justly esteem those incidents fortunate which compel an exertion of mental power, maturity of which is rarely seen growing out of an uninterrupted tranquility. Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man, is not that he has been exempted from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.”

Patrick Henry

Do not get into management if you can’t

1. Master your desires.
2. Keep your self-control. A manager must be calm in crises and resilient in disappointment.
3. Use the best ideas of your staff. However, you must be decisive and not wait on others to make up their minds.
4. Handle criticism. Profit from even malicious criticism.
5. Turn disappointment into creative new opportunity.
6. Gain cooperation of others and win their respect and confidence.
7. Exert discipline without making a power play or show of force.
8. Be a peace maker. Can you make peace when argument has broken out.
9. Gain the trust of your people in difficult and delicate situations.
10. Induce people to do happily some legitimate thing that they would not normally wish to do.
11. Accept opposition to your viewpoint or decision without taking offense.
12. Make and keep friends. Loyal friends is an index of your leadership potential.
13. Hold steady in the face of disapproval and even temporary loss of confidence.
14. Be at ease in the presence of strangers. A leader must not get nervous in the presence of his superiors.
15. Be sympathetic and friendly.
16. Initiate and maintain an interest in people. No matter who.
17. Be tactful. A leader and manager must anticipate how his or her words will affect a person.
18. Be strong willed and steady. Do not vacillitate or drift in the wind.
19. Forgive. Nursing resentment and harboring ill-feelings is not becoming of a manager.
20. Maintain Optimism. Pessimism and leadership/management mix like oil and water.
21. Feel a master passion. Leaders/managers need a strong focus.
22. Welcome responsibility.

See not really all that difficult now is it.

“It’s A Wonderful Life”

Gary North on Debt, Hard Work, Heroism, and Redemption:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north143.html

Leadership Quotes

A sermon I heard today challenged me to think about what kind of leader I am and should be. In turn, this inspired me to dig into my notes and as I did I pulled out these dandy’s:

“What can be more bold than the government of the state by virtue? For then the man who rules others is not himself a slave to any passion, but has already acquired for himself all those qualities to which he is training and summoning his fellows. Such a man imposes no laws upon the people that he does not obey himself, but puts his own life before his fellow-citizens as their law.”

Cicero

“Do your duty in all things….You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.”

Robert E. Lee

“Before a man can discipline other men, he must demonstrate his ability to discipline himself. Before he may be allowed the command of commission, he must evidence command of character. Look then to the work of his hands. Hear the words of his mouth. By his fruit you shall know him.”

Teddy Roosevelt

“It is not good to eat much honey; so to seek one’s glory is not glory”

Proverbs 25:27

“The best Leaders always educate themselves”

David J. Vaughan

“You may fill your heads with Knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based uon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.”

Booker T. Washington

“I cannot consent to place in the control of others one who cannot control himself.”

Robert E. Lee

“Great Leaders read in order to Lead”

Stephen Mansfield

“What is required of a good Knight? That he should be noble. What means noble and nobility? That the heart should be governed by the virtues. By what virtues? By the four (cardinal virtues) I have already named. These four virtues are sisters and so bound up one with the other, that he who has one, has all, and he who lacks one, lacks the others also. So the virtuous knight should be wary and prudent, just in the doing of justice, continent and temperate, enduring and courageous; and withal he must have a great faith in God, hope at His glory, that he may attain the guerdon of the good that he has done, and finally he must have charity (Love for God) and the love of his neighbour.”

Diaz De Gamez

“This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:8-9

My prayer – Have a virtuous character, a competent ability, and serve others sacrificially.

Servant Leadership

Our postmodern wasteland is awash with technological advancement and political sophistication. Yet for all the promises the technocrats and utopians try and sweet talk us with, we know they cannot deliver the goods. Certainly, the failure is not technology, nor the utopianism of the ideologues, but our own lack of understanding what leadership is supposed to look like.

Slightly more than 2,000 years ago, we were instructed on what true leadership looks like:

“Ye Know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.

But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to miniser, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

True leadership than is to be found in serving others and, specifically, in serving those whom you have been entrusted to care for. As David J Vaughan has rightly noted:

“Genuine Leadership, therefore, is not a matter of holding a powerful position or exercising coercive power over others. It is not a matter of issuing commands. It is not a matter of sitting in an impressive office devising plans and strategies and programs. It is not a matter of talk, which is cheap. Rather, real leadership is the expression of a life – a life of sacrifice in the service of others.”

To those of us who have been given the blessing of leading others let us understand that our authority comes through service and not the will to power.