Proverbs 15:7, 14, 28 (NIV) 7 The lips of the wise spread knowledge; not so the hearts of fools. 14 The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly. 28 The heart of the righteous weighs its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil.
- Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?
- Matthew 15:18 (MSG) But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart.
- Luke 8:15 (NLT) But the good soil represents honest, good-hearted people who hear God's message, cling to it, and steadily produce a huge harvest.
In an old HBR article on picking leaders by Sorcher and Brant (2002) they make the point (without saying it) that leadership is really a heart issue - and I'm using "heart" in it full Biblical meaning - the totality of man's inner or immaterial nature - the whole spectrum of human emotions and the deepest, innermost feelings. They talk about the "soft" skills of a leader. And those "soft skills" are what the word heart in these passages refers to.
The Hebrew language builds idioms around this word: Wisdom resides in the heart; Understanding resides in the heart; the heart is where the seat of the will resides; and more. Leaders are life-long learners (seekers of knowledge). Leaders know how to think through not only the information, but also the impact it might have on the hearers. Leaders share information. Leaders have integrity. And today, this is sorely needed in America's public (and private) companies. Look at the cost to corporations that must follow the guidelines of the Sarbanes-Oxley law: it has changed the face of the audit committee, and the availability of auditors to the point that smaller corporations are suddenly without their Auditing firm because that firm has so much work from the larger corporations.
Look now at the failure of even Enron that had an Ethics Manual that was over an inch thick. We learn that it is not in the writing of the words on paper; rather, it is the writing of the words in the heart. Assimilating ethical guidelines is not a casual, haphazard process but demands disciplined leadership to not only live out the core values, but also to demand of the executives a growth in the understanding of how they are to be applied in the day-to-day operations of the enterprise. What a CEO says has meaning beyond the simple words.
We have experienced a collapse of American business because of sin and the resultant lack of Biblically based leadership from some of America's CEOs. Their actions tell us what was in their hearts. Their teams, that willingly, in most cases, participated tells us what was in their hearts. We are talking about decisions that are greater than simply "legal" decisions: moral decisions and legal boundaries are not the same. We are called to live by a moral law. We are called to live with a renewed heart that yields a harvest for righteousness.
Do you have the tools needed to apply the principles of Business Best Practices in a way that will differentiate them from those who feed on folly? Feed right, you will.
What are you feeding on?
Copyright (c) 2006 by P. Griffith Lindell
No comments:
Post a Comment