Quick Update: Leadership Seminar for Saturday is POSTPONED
Something that seems to keep coming up in my conversations over the past month is how easy it is for leaders to get distracted by the task list and miss the importance of investing in people. We know how important the work is and we want to produce the best product or program or event we can, so we either push our people too hard or we personally take on more tasks than we should. There is nothing wrong with a leader who cares about their mission or who gets down in the dirt with their people. The problem comes when we start to think that our mission as leaders is to accomplish a task instead of developing people who accomplish tasks. Not only is that work incredibly hard, it also tends to see things fall apart in the immediate short-term. Projects take way longer to get done, or they simply don't get done. Necessary changes don't happen. Quality of events, programs and products plummet. So, it feels like we are failing to accomplish the mission! But, if we fail to develop our people, we may have immediate short-term success, but we will see everything fall apart long-term. Leaders must think long-term. They need to be thinking ahead of everyone else; that's why they are leaders.
Jesus understands this and lives it. He went to Heaven after the resurrection so He could send us the Holy Spirit. He knew the mission wasn't just to do good work; it was to develop and transform His people to do good works!
People are our mission. Our tasks should make our people better. If our tasks become the mission, and we become more focused on that than developing our people, we are actually working against our mission.
Whoever you lead in your life, make sure they are more important than the task in front of you.
