To Lead, You Must Follow

Proverbs 2: 6 (MSG) …God gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding.

The greatest command is to love God with – well, everything. When the object of our love gives us a gift, we normally accept it. The gift is Wisdom and it’s free.

In good or bad economic times, wisdom to make good business decisions should be accepted cherished, and loved. One definition of wisdom is that it is knowledge guided by understanding. The FREE offer is packaged: it comes with plain, straightforward knowledge and understanding. If the definition of understanding includes “knowing things in their right relationship,” this should be an offer that should be hard to refuse. Many leaders do, however. The burning question maybe well be - Why?

Leadership is not a “self” thing. To be a great leader, you first must be a great follower. Jesus tells the story about the shepherd and his sheep and that “….he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow…” We sometimes think we are the shepherd – leading. We are the sheep, following.

Who you follow makes a difference. Our natural inclination is to follow our learning, our native ability to analyze, synthesize and capitalize upon the patterns we find in the data. Following God in our business life, seems, somehow, incongruent. Praying about niggling business decisions seems, to many, a waste of God’s time (and ours). It seems that for many of us, that we are more comfortable following our instincts or following the advice of a friend, a consultant, an author or academician. Are you daily taking advantage of the free gift of Wisdom to lead your business, your group, your team and/or your family?

Leader: Are you first a follower?

Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell