Leadership Thought: What Kind of Leader Are You?

Dear Friends,

What kind of leader are you? Are you one who is more concerned about results than relationships, process more than people? Do you lead first and love second or love first and lead second?

Good leaders are able to do both simultaneously. They never lose sight of their goals, what they are called to achieve, but they never forget the people who help them achieve those goals.

The leader can be successful and knowledgeable in his field, and possess a vision to see possibilities long before others see them, but without people skills, he quickly discovers the truth that  “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Everyone who serves on a team wants to know he or she is loved and appreciated. That is why it is so important for a leader to love his people. If a leader doesn’t love his people, it won’t be long before the leader starts manipulating and taking advantage of them.

Long ago I read words I have never forgotten: “A leader leads by serving and serves by leading.” Good leaders both lead their people and love and serve their people.

Research has shown that if employees work in a culture where love, affection, care, and compassion are present, they are more satisfied with their job, more committed to the organization, and are more accountable for their performance. No one wants to work in an environment where the only bottom line is the dollar sign, and where the leader uses his people and doesn’t love his people. When this happens, leaders become more committed to satisfying their investors than investing in their people.

If you don’t love your people, you fail them. You will take advantage of them and abuse them, and in the process, they will lose respect for you, and often this lack of a caring culture will become the company’s demise.

Lording leaders’ want what best for themselves. Loving leaders want what’s best for their people.

The consummate example of leadership is our Lord who taught us to always “love one another” (John 15:12). But then He becomes more specific and takes the challenge to a more daunting level when He tells us that the love, He describes should be the same kind of self-sacrificing love with which He has loved us.

To love your people as Christ loved us, doesn’t mean that a leader neglects accountability or ignores people deficiencies or lowers his expectations of his employees, for the leader who loves his people wants the best for his people and wants them to be their very best.

It has been said that it is wonderful when the people believe in their leader, but it is even more wonderful when the leader believes in and loves his people. That is the kind of win-win situation that every leader and every employee desires.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom