Servant-leadership: CONTROL YOURSELF - Leadership and Seduction

Proverbs 7:1-5 (MSG) Dear friend, do what I tell you; treasure my careful instructions. Do what I say and you'll live well. My teaching is as precious as your eyesight—guard it! Write it out on the back of your hands; etch it on the chambers of your heart. Talk to Wisdom as to a sister. Treat Insight as your companion. They'll be with you to fend off the Temptress—that smooth-talking, honey-tongued Seductress.

Being committed to personal purpose, having a system of ethics and a holistic worldview that does not separate the sacred from the secular is a good start. It is not enough.

The next step is the harder step. Disciplining yourself. These verses make it clear that eternal core values must be of paramount importance if we are to protect ourselves from seduction – of any kind.

For leaders, the line between leading and seducing by that power it mighty thin: consider the German language where “to lead” is “fuehren” (think Fuehrer!) and by adding only the prefix “ver” or “verfuehren,” the result is “to seduce.”

We must protect ourselves from the “Great Seducer” who wants to add a “simple prefix” to our thinking and paints his path as the path to freedom – freedom to think on our own and to run our lives and business on our own – a path that is actually the very opposite of freedom – slavery; a path that looks good, but is not. Seducing others to follow our lead down this path – playing around with your life – has deadly, eternal consequences.

The seductive path mimics the real. Can you tell the difference?


Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell

LOVING DISCIPLINE

Proverbs 12: 1 (AMP) Whoever loves instruction and correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is like a brute beast, stupid and indiscriminating.

Controlling self is a critical stage in learning how to lead: Discipline; Determination to change your approaches and responses to behavior yielding different results. I’m reminded of what M. Scott Peck said in his book The Road Less Traveled, “without discipline we can solve nothing.”

To put this verse more simply – “to learn, you must have discipline (NLT).” To grow personally as a leader, it demands of you not only self discipline, but also the “discipline” from others: both have the power to shape your work and your life to better pursue the direction needed to create positive change.

But note also what this word of wisdom from Proverbs tells us: we are not to tolerate discipline. Not deal with it. Not accept it. Love it. Leaders learn that every action taken is a learning experience: they see it as producing a result- not as success or failure, per se. That’s the attitude of loving discipline. Learn from the results you produce.

If you don’t like the results, change what you are doing – don’t be a “brute beast, stupid and indiscriminating.” Learn. Change. Grow.

Have you developed the attitude needed to learn from discipline?


Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell