I think there are in essence two extremes in the type of leaders and managers. One who delegates everything and another who takes on everything himself or herself. There are pros and cons to both approaches. The main weakness of the one who delegates fully is he is not hands on and thus could be out of touch with reality. He could be accused of taking the position and not doing anything since all the work is done by his subordinates. However, that could also be the best use of his talents and time and he could correspondingly achieve much more in the process. On the other hand, the good thing about the person who does everything himself is that he is fully hands on. He is a leader who rolls up his sleeves and gets dirty to get the work done. However, there is just so much he can do himself. A team is always able to do more than one person, no matter how talented or efficient that person is.
Moses was the leader who started off doing everything himself. He was the sole person in the company of nearly 600,000 families who had fled Egypt as slaves, who was adjudicating and arbitrating disputes between them. So he heard and administered the law and percepts of God for that fleeing community from dawn to dusk day in and day out. Jethro his father in law immediately saw the absurdity of the situation and advised him to appoint layers of capable and upright leaders so that only the difficult and complex cases reach him. The same thing was also done during the early days of the church following the explosion of power and might after the day of Pentecost with the Apostles withdrawing into prayer and teaching while other capable leaders were appointed to do day to day administration of the community of believers. The record shows that Moses heeded the advice of his father in law.
Are we a leader who wants to do everything ourselves? Will we heed the advice of those around us, our loved ones, to start delegating our work and let others take on the responsibilities and grow?
For the past few months, I had assigned my own cell group members to take turns to lead and teach each chapter in our bible study. In our local church we call these cells Life Groups and I had assigned so far 3 chapters of the 7-chapter study to be handled by them and there are 2 more in the pipeline. So in the end, I would have led only 2 out of the 7 chapters. So far, they have done much better than me in terms of delivery and the use of cutting edge teaching tools like slides, online resources etc. More importantly, my cell group leaders felt empowered and sought God themselves and thus experiencing first hand the spiritual lessons from God before teaching and leading the study.
It’s time to start delegating if we haven’t. It’s time to heed the advice of our loved ones. It’s time to empower others as the best way for others to grow is to let them do the thing themselves. Let more people come into the presence of God to draw strength and inspiration. Let the Lord be the source of all knowledge and inspiration! Amen
Ronnie's Thoughts 