Leaders Know What’s Precious

Proverbs 7:3 (NKJV) Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye.

The idiom in this verse literally means the “pupil of the eye” but has come to mean, “that which we hold most precious.” Remember the words of our Servant-Leader model about what is precious:

“Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them."” Matt 22: 37-40 (MSG)

God’s laws, like principles of leadership, are fundamentally about two issues: personal integrity and the value of others. Robin S. Sharma in Leadership Wisdom from The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari put it this way: “The greatest privilege of leadership is the chance to elevate lives."

Robert E. Staub - (The Heart of Leadership: 12 Practices of a Courageous Leader) - reveals that those who purport to lead - but fail - do so because they don't understand who it is they're trying to lead. Sometimes, evaluations of the team are based upon the wrong criteria – they may well be the right “people on the bus” and leaders miss it because they are not holding the skills possessed as “precious.”

According to Jim Collins, “The good-to-great leaders understood …[a] simple truth….if you begin with “who,” rather than “what,” you can more easily adapt to a changing world.” What I have learned is that working on developing the “who” is a rigorous process and takes competency, intimacy, integrity, and passion.

Leaders know what is precious: It not the stuff that must be done; rather, it’s the people who team with them to get it done.

Who is (and/or is it “what is”) most precious to you?


Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell

Catch the Vision: Change the Culture

Proverbs 29:18a (DARBY) Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint


Corporate culture has a least three driving elements: vision; mission; and values.

A vision provides an over-arching view of the future. Great companies have articulated and shared their vision and the research demonstrates that those companies increase shareholder value well beyond comparable companies with no vision.

Vision shared effectively inspires employees to consider every problem as shared by each, calling for teamwork and cooperation, putting the needs of the company and its commitment to employees, customers and other stakeholders ahead of everything else. (The order is important, too!)

The mission presents the company’s reason for existence. It succinctly identifies what is done and the customer who receives the benefits of what the organization offers.

Values effectively shape the behaviors utilized to fulfill the mission.

Effective business leaders will have followers (employees) who understand the “rules” (core values), drive toward completion of a mission and help fulfill the corporate purpose (vision). Without a shared vision, assimilated values and a clear mission, employees not only are unsure of themselves and often unhappy, but also “cast off restraint” yielding an unwieldy team.

Leaders, passionate about the culture, inspire and motivate the team to focus on meeting customer needs in a way that yields a “happy” company (great work environment) and satisfied customers.

Are you taking this eternal principle and putting it to work at work?


Copyright © 2009 by P. Griffith Lindell