Delegating authority: a two-way traffic

 

As a leader, how well do you delegate authority?

• Do you feel comfortable dishing out a portion of your authority to a subordinate?
• Can you get busy elsewhere knowing your collaborator or assistant is doing a great job even in your absence?
• Do you give the opportunity to your collaborators to put their own gifts and talents to use?
• Will you protect, defend and back those you’ve delegated to represent you?
• Are you afraid to lose some of your authority if you gave part away?
• Do you feel threatened when your collaborator or associate seems to be doing a better job?
• Do you delegate authority and then stifle it by your attitude towards those you’ve delegated?

How well do you as a subordinate represent your superior?

• Do you take the tasks assigned to you seriously?
• Do you represent in such a way as to give a positive image of the one you represent?
• Are you accountable and responsible to the one who delegated you?
• Do you try to take more authority than you were assigned?
• Do you intentionally sabotage your superior when acting by delegation so as to become more popular than them?
• Can your superior trust to have you sit in for him next time?

Every human being is a delegated authority. God has delegated all of us to represent Him on the earth. How well do we do it?

As the leader, can you trust others like God has trusted you?

When you get delegated by a superior at work, how do you handle that responsibility?

Share your thoughts.

 

Until you sit there yourself

It could be pretty easy to dish out the leadership tips until you sit on that seat yourself.

Then you begin to understand why some things didn’t work out the way you expected.

We have a duty to correct our leaders, but we must do so with love.

They need our prayers.

“It’s your fault; it’s my effort”

A humble leader will take the blame and give the credit.

When things go wrong, “It’s my fault, I should have known; I should have predicted this…”

When things go right, “It’s thanks to the effort of my team; they’re an amazing group to work with…”

Rather than

When things go wrong, “It’s your fault; you’re all so incompetent”.

When things go right, “It’s thanks to my talent and ingenuity”.

When the leader starts taking all the credit and dishing out all the blame, we are just a step away from discontent and rebellion.

When a leader takes the blame it opens up an avenue for self-improvement.

When they take only the credit they can easily slump into a comfort zone and fail to predict future errors.

When God shows you who you really are

Recently, God has been “breaking my heart”; yes He has been pulling back some curtains and letting me see what lies behind them. “Without mercy” He has been showing me who I really am.

I thought I knew me, but then….

Sometimes we begin to think that we got it all right; that we are above certain circumstances and temptations. We think we can overcome such and such a temptation. We then let down our guard and before we know it, we come back crawling at Jesus’ feet like miserable beggars full of guilt and shame.

That is what has been happening to me.

“Why did God let me walk into that mess when he could just “do something” to keep me out of it?”

Good question.

Yes! God can keep us out of every mess. But that will never teach us hardened humans the lessons we need to learn. Sometimes He just has to let us eat the cake and have a taste of it. He wants you to see you as you are.

He wants to show us our weaknesses so that we can work on them and be untouchable by our adversary the devil.

So you thought you were already above theft. Then the other day at the mall you did something really strange.

God wants to show you your Achilles’ heel so you won’t be taken by your adversary.

He wants us to know that we can’t count on our own strength.

He wants us to know that when we think we stand, it could just be the time wherein we are most vulnerable (1Corinthians 10:12).

As I said at the beginning of this article, recently God has allowed me to run into such a mess that I just couldn’t believe my eyes. I really thought I had outgrown such vulnerability. I didn’t know I could still fail such a test. He loves me so much not to let me go on, ignorant of my weaknesses because that will be like building my house close to an active volcano.

This is so important because even when you are ignorant of your weaknesses, the devil and his cohort aren’t. They know your Achilles’ heel and are looking for an opportunity to get at your by that route.

Is it not therefore a good thing that your heavenly Father shows you that route so you can work on it?

At the end of this exercise I simply lifted my eyes to heaven, threw my hands in the air and said “is this how vulnerable I still am? Thank you Lord for loving me this much…”

When God shows you your true self in this way, even though you are His darling child it is all for your good.

He is not being mean.

He is not being uncaring.

He is not being a sadist.

He is not being unloving.

He wants you to grow up so that he can entrust greater things into your hands.

Do you know who you really are? Has God been calling your attention to some loopholes in your life? What has been your reaction?

Are you crying, complaining and murmuring, or you are learning the lessons?