Went for leaders meeting today at Jurong West.
It was awesome. I post this here because I believe it benefits many people and I feel that this is something that many people have to know.
What was preached was very basic but yet, it brings us back to the foundation where we have to check ourselves again if we are or not on the right path.
What is leadership?
Leadership is about adding value to people's life.
Leaders are the givers.
Leadership is a place of sacrifice.
Leadership is a place of serving but not about getting served.
Leadership needs wisdom.
There was a part where the preacher showed a funny example about Christians nowadays.
He took a torch light and shined onto the face of the person in front of him. What was his reaction? He shun away.
Often, believers tend to be too extreme. In other words, they are too much into wanting people to simply come to church and stay. But they are wrong! What they are doing is not shining the light for the path but shining the light to blind them!
Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path.
It says, lamp to my feet and light to my path not lamp to my face and light to my face!
How to lead well?
Leadership is more than just the position itself but it is to lead by influence.
Leaders have to become the source of inspiration.
Here comes the part where I love the most..
Leadership role has different levels.
Level 1. Leading Down (takes only 5% of our ability)
What is leading down? It is the most basic leading system. It is the easiest and the simplest level of leadership. It is a leader, leading its crew/member/team member/follower/etc.
Level 2. Leading Lateral (takes 20% of our ability)
What is leading lateral?
Leading laterally is to lead by influence.
People don't have to be led by you but they are willing to be led by you because they were inspired by you.
It is where you need to have the capability to let others follow you eventhough you are not the leader that they must follow, especially those that are of the same level.
This level, is more difficult than leading down. It is where you really have to show people what you are capable of to spark off and inspire them to do something like you, therefore they will turn out to be led by you, willingly.
Level 3. Leading Up (takes 25% of our ability)
What is leading up?
Leading up simply means leading someone in a higher position than you.
(may sound intimidating)
What does leading up need? You have to be the one setting examples in every area.
i.e. Your relationship with your parents, your walk with God, your marriage, etc.
This is most mainly for young leaders. Why? The bible itself says that we should not look down of our youths, we should never say we are too young to do great things.
Leading up simply means that even younger leaders can even influence the older leaders!
This level is the hardest among all these 3 levels.
When you think it is the hardest, you are wrong!
Level 4. Leading yourself (takes 50% of your ability)
Leading yourself is the most difficult. You have to do this first before you move on to leading down, lateral and up.
You have to be a good example of everything.
It is hard to tell people to be generous if you are not generous.
It is hard to tell people to pray more if you are not praying more.
It is hard to tell people to be on time if you are always not on time.
How on earth can you tell someone to do this and that when you are not doing it?
When a leader cannot lead himself/herself, he/she will become manipulative.
It has become a dangerous situation whereby the leader will not be leading by inspiring but by manipulating the follower(s).
Using intimidating ways to lead, to manipulate guilt, fear, to make people do what you want.
Manipulating the followers is to get advantage of their insecurity.
Their source of security has become the source of other's insecurity.
As believers, you have to put God first, then lead yourself before you lead others.
How can you build others when you can't build yourself?
As a leader, one must lead yourself right before you lead others.
Nobody can ever help you if you don't even help yourself.
How to lead up?
To lead up, it's never easy.
You have to do your job EXTREMELY WELL!
Lets say, you are in a typical company. If you were to do extremely well in the project handled to you, you will definitely be noticed by the boss right?
This is where you have built a general relationship, you've become noticed, you've become someone that the leader thinks you are capable of doing great things.
You also have to be willing to do what others won't do.
But, remember to do your job extremely well first before doing something else.
Be prepared. Prepare the things you want your leader to know, tell them in a way your leader can understand your position and your thoughts, let them see the benefit of your ideas and plans.
eg. Theres a worker coming to the concert director telling him that if the lights were to get changed will be better, then the worker simply tell the director how much he needs to get the lights fixed. Of course, the director would definitely reject the proposal of this worker, because he simply told him about it and asks for money.
The worker did not show what was the benefit of the light by showing pictures of them!
Also, understand your leader's mood!
If your leader is in no mood to know about the proposal, how can he/she understand it?
They are humans too, so don't expect them to be ready to listen everytime.
Most importantly,
John 13:17
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
Jared was telling us that, sometimes, we do want to take breaks but we have to remember, like what the chinese saying goes, 休息是为了走跟长的路.
