Hi friends! The series of Outstanding Leader has come to the fifth key today. We pray that you are enlightened and led by the Holy Spirit during past sixteen weeks.

In previous episodes, our sharing was about people-orientation and giving of ourselves to build people up. Now, let us look into the area of competency, the performance that God demands.

To begin with, let’s look at Genesis 39: 22-23 (NIV): “So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.” Because Joseph was competent, the warden knew for sure that he would do a good job no matter what he was entrusted to do. Joseph’s reliance on God gave him what he needed to achieve great results.

The former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, said, “however beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the result.” During World War 2, Churchill recognised the scale of the tasks ahead as his country prepared to fight against German Nazi forces led by Adolf Hilter. To win the war, Churchill reckoned that competent officers were all the country needed.

If we are fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives and our organisations, the results we achieve should reflect that too. In order to achieve the best results, leaders have to match the tasks and responsibilities of each member with their competency level. However, competency alone is not sufficient; the bedrock of character is also equally important. Some Christian circles over-emphasise building character and neglect the discipline of competency. Others emphasise competency at the expense of character. It is important for us to understand that character is not a substitute for competency, but rather its foundation.

There are two aspects of competency that the leader must possess: personal and corporate.

PERSONAL COMPETENCY

Leaders must move from being efficient (doing things right) to being effective (doing the right things) to finally being efficacious (beneficial to everyone involved). This is a process which can only begin when individual competency is in place.

Peter Drucker, a management consultant, said, “It’s up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive… to do those things well, you’ll need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself – not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence.”

To do so, we must know what is required in our works first. If not, we cannot carry out the responsibilities effectively. And we need to devote time for training in order to sharpen our skills.

Consider David’s example in the Bible. By the time he faced Goliath, he was very skilled in using the sling and stone. He may not have had the strength of Samson, but through honing his skills with regular practice, he knocked out Goliath and chopped off his head.

Spiritual leaders are tasked with the role of equipping church members and leaders for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4: 12). Some of us who have prophetic and shepherding gifts may have insights, just like the men of Issachar, to know and understand the times (1 Chronicles 12: 32).

But these insights should always be in connection with relevant expert opinions. For example, Christian preachers should avoid giving their followers advice to invest in property or in financial markets. That should come from financial experts that carry the weight.

Promotion and reward should also be in line with personal competency but up to a certain point. A junior executive is not entrusted with a CEO’s job until he has shown himself capable of it. Even then, he needs to accumulate sufficient experience, drive and desire to reach that position. Christians should always remember that the best place to be in is the centre of God’s will. That is the intersection of our personality traits, desires and resources with the values and downloads God has given us.

Envision a diagram with three identical circles intersecting with each other, one on top of the other two. The top circle consists of items on “can do” list is our gifts, EQ competencies, skills, talents and abilities. The second circle, at the left bottom is our “want to do”. The list consists of traits, motives, drives, desires and interests that actually stimulate us. Finally, the circle at the right bottom is the “should do” list. This “should do” circle consists of core values, principles, culture, commandments, statutes and organisation values which we live by.

We produce our best work when all these three circles intersect, a zone referred as Hallelujah Sector by Pastor Daniel Foo. In that zone, our personal gifts, goals and dreams line up with God’s will, which enables us to function at our most competent, motivated and capable levels. People work best in stations they both succeed in, and want to remain in.

As godly leaders, we are to focus on knowing and building up people as individuals, understanding their desires and ambitions before delegating relevant responsibilities to them.

Being invested in the interests, work and progression of others is the antidote to the “Peter principle” – the observation by management teacher Laurence Peter. According to him, a good, capable worker will be given more and more responsibilities until he falters and fails. He wrote, “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.” He added further, “work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.”

Personal competency should take into account not only what the individual can do, but what he wants to do and should do. Promotions come with guidance, mentorship and prayer with full knowledge of one’s personality, capacity and core competencies.

BEING SELF-AWARE

Self-aware is another vital aspect of personal competency – we have to know and work from our strengths. When Stanford Business School’s Advisory Council of 75 members were asked which was the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was near-unanimous: self-awareness.

One way to discover our strengths is to use basic psychometric and personality profiling tools. These tools or tests may not completely predict or measure who we are but they facilitate understanding of our personality traits, talents and aptitudes. Every strength pushed to its extreme eventually becomes a weakness and we must focus on building our strengths to a state of maturity.

Being a self-aware leader helps us share our areas of shortcomings with others, with the intention to keep negative behaviours in check. It also alerts us to those areas where we would find challenging and to find people who would act as an equalizer.

ACCEPT CORRECTION

An area that is constantly overlooked is the value of honest and constructive evaluation. This is often due to the negative connotations that we attach to the idea of being corrected. However, there is an important difference between constructive feedback and negativity. An example that illustrates the difference between the two can be found in the book of Acts. Apollos, a new preacher, was given advice on how to improve: “So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Pricilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18: 26).

Although Apollos’ preaching was not well-polished, Aquila and Pricilla did not discourage him from speaking, instead, the couple invested their time and energy to guide him into a better understanding of how to expound the Scriptures.

All of us need constructive criticism and good feedback. In Pastor Foo’s church, they conduct weekly pastoral meetings where they provide feedback on both the speaker and the message. Through this process, they help speakers to improve both the content and the delivery.

Testimony:   Mark, a Christian, is a senior executive in a logistics firm. He brought his team together by syncing his personal vision with the larger corporate objectives of his organisation. He counselled everyone who reports to him individually. A team member who was struggling, Mark promoted him instead of labelling him as someone who was not able to handle stress. As a result, the team member went on to become an outstanding performer in the team.

Although Mark’s bosses consider his approach to be too ‘soft’, they acknowledge that his team is strongly motivated and has consistently outperformed others. At a meeting, one of his bosses even said “your team is unlike any other” – acknowledging that his team members were close to each other like a family.

The vision that Mark brought to the team has become the team vision and it also contributes to the larger organisational objectives. For those who are unable to follow his vision, Mark makes an extra effort to counsel them, failing which, he moves them to another group that might suit them better so that his team culture remains consistent.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and they are shown in our personalities and working styles. However, as we manage others, we need to realise that not everyone can receive criticism without taking it too personally. Anyone can come to depersonalise criticism, with awareness, training and mentoring, but not everyone does. Some people do not yet have the emotional ‘frequency’ to accommodate that criticism, and we need to take this into account as we build them up.

In summary, the desire to improve must be linked with a clear purpose-vision and mission – to provide direction for our growth into Christlikeness. We need a “why” (our purpose), a “what” (our vision) and a “how” (our mission).

If our own vision is out of sync with the bigger vineyard, we will not be able to be more effective, which will subsequently also affect the growth of others in the team. In situations like these, it is better for us to leave and serve somewhere else where we might be a better fit.

As Christians, our call is to embody God’s call and purpose and give of our best to the One whom we are co-labourers with.

Do join us again the following Wednesday, friends, for more powerful sharing as Pastor Daniel Foo speaks further on part 2 of the Performance of the Leader. Please stay tuned. Good bye.

<< Song title: Let There Be Light by Bryan & Katie Torwalt >>