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Encouraging People Who Assume Responsibility
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In any population of people there are some who shed responsibility and some who assume responsibility. Those who assume represent a much smaller percentage. These are people who will take on responsibility at their own personal cost, and they are often achievement oriented.
Good leadership involves surrounding yourself with these people who assume responsibility. In theological terms, Jesus talked about the people who would "take up their crosses", "not look back after setting their hand to the plow", and who would "calculate the cost" before constructing a tower.
Assumers are not perfect and have idiosyncrasies. Leadership involves harmonizing those idiosyncrasies into a productive team. Team leadership is enhanced by continuously replenishing the team with assumers.
Assumers also have different gifts. Some are excellent with numbers, some are people persons, others may be communicators, technology experts, group leaders, systems analysts, etc.
One temptation in leadership, because of our own insecurities, is to surround ourselves with fans and supporters that are not assumers. They provide emotional support and encouragement but do not shoulder the load. That means the team has a small "load factor", equal only to the abilities of the single leader. Teams that are based on a large number of assumers can shoulder a much larger "load factor".
A mistake often made is to think that those who are able to talk about problems actually want to act. Endless discussions, meetings, and conferences deceive us into thinking we are accomplishing something when many of the participants are meeting their personal needs by crafting plans and strategies that they have no will or intention to execute. Churches become paralyzed into a meeting and conference syndrome about topics such as evangelism, stewardship, youth work, and outreach. The differential between talk and action is hopelessly skewed.
The best conferences and workshops will be led by teams and individuals that are actually achieving the goals being sought.
Who are the people nearby doing things you admire? How can we get closer to them and learn from them? Good equipping encourages assumers to action. Assumers instinctively know when the talk/action ratio is healthy.
Item 68
©2005 Ronald C. Ferris
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