Thursday, July 20, 2006

Leaders Understand Internal Motivation

Proverbs 20: 5, 27 (AMP) 5Counsel in the heart of man is like water in a deep well, but a man of understanding draws it out.   27The spirit of man [that factor in human personality which proceeds immediately from God] is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.

The question "What business are you really in?" has fueled the longest and deepest discussions in my career. Goffee and Jones had asked this very question in a ten-year study, the results published in the Sept-Oct 2000 HBR, Why Should Anyone Be Lead by You? They discovered four "unexpected" traits of "inspirational" leaders - first being that leaders "reveal their weaknesses." Proud people shun that kind of leading. Their only "lamp" is themselves. It is all about them. Moses led millions. He learned to better manage the process by his father-in-law who immediately saw a managerial flaw early in Moses' career. Moses, his motive and heart pure, listened, set up the system to manage the process. Numbers 12:3 reminds us that "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth."

Leading from a position of humility works.


Copyright ©2006 by P. Griffith Lindell     

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