Leadership

Today - I’m talking about leadership from a business perspective.

Starting off with a sizable verse - 1 Timothy 3:1-6 “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil…”

I’m going to go through each of those aspects which are for the overseer or the bishop of the church - not a high level business position, but it applies all the same for this post. I will also add additional points to watch out for while leading. I will not be speaking on any relationships in this post - some points will regardless also apply to relationships, and others not so much.

Sober-minded - I’m going to simplify this into today’s term - level-headed. A leader can’t be someone who is easily swayed or constantly angry, a leader should be like a strong oak tree.

Self-controlled - fairly straight forward - a leader needs to be able to control himself, some of these actions are physically simple and easy to see - such as no drinking to drunkenness or similar drug use. Others are tougher - how much “work” time do you truly spend working for instance, how much time is spent on Facebook, or other social media? Additionally this also covers controlling one’s anger - especially in business it is extremely easy to get intensely angry over a situation, and that can sink the entire ship. Smile through the hard situations - and deal with the big problems.

Respectable - this is an incredibly broad point, and there are many aspects of one's character that can change it - some of those characteristics are different even depending on the group you are within. E.g. in some groups it is respectable to be able to drink a large amount of alcohol without great impact on you, in other groups it is respectable not to drink at all. This is a main focus of the RP subs, and especially the RPC subreddit is focused on this area.

For starters - a man is never respected if he is weak. There are many different aspects to strength - such as good work ethic (which is resiliency), actual muscle strength, and many more. You need to account for these areas and make yourself as strong as possible. This is why question posts require lifting stats on this subreddit - if you look like a string bean or a bowling ball - everyone knows you aren’t worth their respect.

Another area is how you speak - if you sound like a weasel, or too enthusiastic, or any other number of weird vocal patterns - that will greatly harm you. If you know you suffer from weak speaking skills - I recommend joining your local Toastmasters group, or working a sales job for a time (~3 months and you can go from being a terrible speaker to a top 1% speaker.)

Another area is how you dress - everyone knows how a plumber looks - right? Sagging jeans, butt crack poking out, at least forty pounds overweight - but not necessarily weak - just disgusting. Plumbers would certainly be more respected if they would wear well fitted clothing, tuck their shirt in and wear a collared shirt (going as far as is appropriate with the working conditions). The same goes for other areas - if I’m a large business owner looking for someone to help my business IPO, I certainly won’t hire someone wearing cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt - they will have a nice multi-thousand dollar suit on when I meet with them.

Most respect is established on first impression - of which you get to make two. First - how you look when someone sees you for the first time. Second - how you sound when someone hears you for the first time.

Hospitable - leaders will not be purely ruthless - especially to their allies, in business this may be their employees, shareholders, etc. You’ve probably heard stories of huge boycotts being started after a CEO fires someone who has terminal cancer instead of supporting them to their ability. And you’ve likely heard stories the opposite way where business greatly increases after positive coverage of an employee being correctly taken care of. For example - an employer giving six months of paid leave to an employee with terminal cancer - who very luckily survives and returns to work.

Those situations aren’t most of what you deal with as a leader though - your job is to lead the way and begin clearing the path. Think of your group as treading through a dense jungle - and everyone has a machete. You are still the person going first - cutting away a majority of the jungle in your path, they may still get hit by quite a few branches and need to chop quite a bit themselves to truly clear a path - but you’re the one at the front dealing with the largest amount of problems. You aren’t making sacrificial pawns out of your allies. You may have met “leaders” who take it solely upon themselves to bark orders and do no work themselves - this doesn’t work, it isn’t hospitable to your allies, and it isn’t respectable.

And you aren’t clearing this jungle path for someone else - it was your decision, you may take advice on which direction would be the best path to take, and if you have great teammates you’ll almost always heed their advice - but you are the final say. Keep in mind here - that every one of us who can be called a Christian’s path leads to the same point, although the directions aren’t the same. Simplifying it, the end goal of our mission is - 1) Love God 2) Love people (and not the flesh of the people - think of this in the way God loves us) 3) Make disciples.

Able to teach - you need to be able to both convey a process quickly, and accurately. And also correct behaviors quickly, and accurately. For behavior correcting as the leader - when a problematic behavior comes along with one of your followers you need to turn their head back towards the same path you are on. Generally - it is easiest to do this by acknowledging the problem, but doing it in the least hurtful way possible. For example “Hey (name) - I see you’re doing xyz in xyz way - mind if I show you a quicker method?” This will not always be possible though - many correction situations do have some pain attached, generally you are looking to minimize that pain - as long as you are able to do so and get them on the right path simultaneously. If you do not minimize the pain - they may grow to hate you. Some minor pain now to save greater pain later - they will grow to respect you over.

Not a drunkard - this statement is fairly repetitious - if you are a drunkard you can’t do any of the requirements above.

Not violent but gentle - this can largely depend from position to position, and this verse is specifically talking about a bishop. A general is a leader - but they would practically never be called “gentle”. A bishop is a position that needs warmth and gentleness on the other hand - so that they can properly care for those who are spiritually sick.

Not quarrelsome - this ties back to the respect point. Arguing makes you look weak - and it means you are weak. If you need to argue you do not have authority in the situation - and a leader can not be a leader without the proper amount of authority.

Not a lover of money - being a lover of money is a form of idolatry. If God isn’t your top priority, whatever else is currently at the top of that ladder is idolatry - and money is an incredibly common one. This doesn’t mean they can’t acknowledge money for what it is - the apex tool, but to place money higher on the ladder than God means their end destination is incorrect.

Must manage his own household well. A person needs to be able to manage things in this order. Themself -> Their household -> Their community -> add any number of in between stages depending on the society/culture -> Their nation -> The world. If they cannot be trusted to handle the former they cannot handle the latter. So if you are appointing a leader for a position - check and see if they check the previous boxes. And for yourself, do you check the previous boxes? If not you aren’t ready for the next one yet, go back and correct the previous box.

And now I’m going to add a couple points that are not present in this verse - but tie back into the general points it lies out.

A leader is not to use “I’m sorry.” or any iteration thereof. “I’m sorry.” is the same as saying “Oh I know I made a mistake, I don’t care, I won’t do anything about it, and I certainly will avoid responsibility for it in any way I possibly can despite technically taking the responsibility with this statement.” In short - it’s useless drivel only said by weak weasels who have no authority over their own lives - who shouldn’t be allowed within miles of authority over anyone else’s lives.

When a huge mistake is made - you may need to take responsibility for the problem. An example of how to properly do this: “I made xyz mistake, here’s how we are going to correct this mistake (or here’s how I am going to correct this mistake).” Oftentimes problems you cause are small enough that they aren’t even worth verbally acknowledging - change your actions to remove the problem in the future and that is plenty. Acknowledging problems that are too small makes it clear you are weak - which greatly reduces, if not eliminates respect.

Those parts above are aspects of a leader - a quick reflection of a good leader is someone tasking out an appropriate amount of responsibilities to their followers. If you have an employee working for you for 40 hours a week, you should be giving them ~35 hours of work a week (people are not perfectly efficient and they can not be expected to be). If you give them 15 hours of work in a week - they will get bored - and idle hands lead to all sorts of issues. If you give them 60 hours of work in a 40 hour week, they will see you as a ruthless overlord - which violates the hospitable requirement above, and additionally stresses them out which leads to decreased performance. This is not a simple task - as people do not complete tasks at the same speed. The leader must learn how fast each individual can complete tasks and delegate accordingly. In business you also additionally need to compensate accordingly.

And no - people do not hate being told what to do if they are truly on the same path as you are - in fact they love it. It allows them to save energy thinking of what they must do - and only focus on the task at hand. They will love it even more-so if your path is generally better than theirs, as that will require less work from them for the same amount produced. This does not mean they want to be micromanaged - if they already know subconsciously how to do a task correctly - telling them how to do it again wastes their energy as they engage their conscious brain for no reason.

If they aren’t on the same path as you, and don’t want to join your path - the easiest option is to leave them behind and look for new crew members. Make this decision quickly - but when looking for new people, add them slowly. One person you don’t remove can kill the entire group, but one person you don’t add will not.