Do loyalty and recognition flow “to and from” your team? (96-4)
All of us have met or served with leaders who read one too many of their own press clippings and started to believe what they were reading. They forgot that they did not achieve any victory alone. Effective leaders understand the value of their team and are fiercely loyal to them. Read 2 Samuel 23:8-35.
David led one of the most famous teams written about in the Bible. Some of the battle feats are so phenomenal that if we saw them reenacted in a movie we would immediately assume the story was fictional. Josheb-Basshebeth “raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter” (v. 8). Another one of David’s Mighty Men was Eleazar who, when all the rest of the army retreated “…stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword….The troops returned to Eleazar, but only to strip the dead” (v. 10). Eleazar single-handedly defeated the troops that put the rest of the army to flight. This team was so important to David that he named them individually in chapter 23.
This team had such a great relationship that when David made a casual remark concerning his desire for a cool sip of water from a certain well they were all familiar with in a territory held by the Philistine army near Bethlehem, “…three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David” (v. 16). When the water was brought to David, he demonstrated why his team loved him; “…he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the Lord. ‘Far be it from me, O Lord, to do this!’ He said. ‘Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?’ And David would not drink it” (vv. 16-17).
Do loyalty and recognition flow “to and from” your team or does it seem the vast majority of the credit for achievement stops with you? Is your team so valuable to you that you would write about their exploits and name each one so everyone knows their names and the mighty acts they accomplished?
Extreme loyalty doesn’t come from having succinct job descriptions. It doesn’t develop because you schedule a leader for a promotion. It doesn’t appear on demand. Loyalty, like that displayed by David’s team, comes through a leader’s action to model loyalty. Effective leaders set the example and model loyalty to their team. They give credit for victories and identify the exploits of their team without “robbing” any of the glory and without expectation of return. Leaders who understand teams know they receive loyalty because they first modeled loyalty.
No comments:
Post a Comment