As organizations grow, there has to be a real push by leaders to make real friends. When I teach on the three steps of leadership, the first step is making friends. People follow people they like. You can actually change an entire office, an entire church, an entire school by the relationships you build.
What I love about the team of leaders at the Tree is they all build authentic relationships with people. All our pastors are friends, all our elders and deacons are in Living Churches in the week in houses, people love and respect each other. Leadership is not a platform, though there are times you have to lead, it is a way to inspire people.
A few times I have had to deal with people who see leadership as their job. They clock in, preach the Word, and then go home. They don’t spend time with people. The idea of going round someone’s house and spending a couple of hours with them is anathema to them! That’s not true, Biblical leadership.
Now building relationships is not always easy, being authentic is not always simple – you have to do things that make you uncomfortable, you have to learn to compromise, you have to handle people, you have to enlarge your heart and genuinely love people. But it is an – if not the – essential step to being an effective leader.
My challenge to all of you today is to take a risk and build some genuine relationships. If you are a leader, stop hiding behind your pulpit or desk or title and go and love people. Some will let you down, every so often one of them will stab you in the back, but the reward always is more than the cost.
If you are friendly, you will be a friend and then you will get friends. That’s what the Bible teaches – to build friendships you always have to make the first move (Proverbs 18.24). If people follow you because you have the title, or you have the position, or you have the pulpit, then that’s not enough, that’s a very shallow level of leadership. You have to develop genuine relationships to be a genuine leader.
Then you don’t just think of procedure, you think of people’s emotions! You don’t just count numbers, you count people. And best of all, you will never reach capacity as others will have more and more potential as you build genuine relationships with them!
People are the power of a church (or business) – learn to be a people person!
Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers 