Biblical leaders don’t have to be nice all the time
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I don't envy those of you in church leadership.
You have pressures those of us in the marketplace don't have. When you let a staff member go, you often have a tougher time because you've been at his family's hospital bedside, done their funerals, conducted their marriages or counseled them through personal crises. When we part ways with employees, the roots aren't as deep, and the aftermath doesn't last as long or spread among entire families like in the church.
Whether you lead in ministry or any kind of organization, Solomon has some great advice (and I paraphrase): "Be nice. But sometimes don't be nice."
That's a relief on one hand – it's okay to not to be liked all the time. On the other, especially for us people pleasers, it's frightening. What do you mean, don't be nice? Most of us actually care about what people think.
Let's look at a passage in Ecclesiastes you've heard before:
Ecclesiastes 3:3-8
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Jesus himself said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34).
If you too must be a peacebreaker from time to time, remember you're in good company. Jesus showed the way we need to be when short-term peace is detrimental to the greater good.
Excerpted from Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership, by Tom Harper (DeepWater Books, 2019).
 | Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More » |
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