🏢WorkLife Wednesday: Religion for Leaders

Welcome to WorkLife Wednesday, where we deep-dive into work-life dilemmas to provide valuable insights with tips and tricks to make the work-place a better place.

Good morning. There’s a difference between Religious Leaders and Religion for Leaders. One represents the people who teach how to be a better Christian, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Hindu, etc, while the latter represents the methodologies we can pull from religious texts to leave the world a better place than we found it. Today’s newsletter focuses on the latter.

For thousands of years, people have studied the stories of The Bible to analyze life’s best practices. Whether you’re religious or not, we can apply these learnings to our everyday work-life to supercharge our leadership capabilities and use life’s best practices to our advantage in the work-place.

The Non-Profit Leadership Center (NLC) developed a powerful acronym that describes the character traits that an emotionally intelligent leader should have: L.E.A.D.E.R.S. We’re going to take this a step further by cross-referencing this acronym with scripture to understand best practice leadership qualities.

L is for Listening. Emotionally intelligent leaders place a higher value on listening than they do talking.

James 1:19 says “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” When I’m in meetings at work, it’s very clear who’s higher up the chain. Not because they talk a lot and own conversations, but because they listen to their team and ask insightful questions when needed. A good leader has the company’s best interest at heart, while a great leader has their team’s best interest at heart. A managers job is to create high level strategies with the information given to them by their employees, so by listening to feedback from the people with boots on the ground, leaders can make better strategic decisions.

Listening also prepares us to solve our customer’s problems. Whether a customer is spending money with your business or is a stakeholder in a project, listening to the VOC can allow you to hone in on specific processes to improve.

E is for Equipping. Emotionally intelligent leaders equip their employees with the tools and resources necessary to fulfill their positions’ requirements effectively.

Ephesians 4:8 says “He gave the gift of ministers to the church to equip the church to grow in Him.” I think Equipping is an appropriate successor to Listening. You’ve listened to your VOC, so now equip your team with the tools and resources necessary to fix their problems. This verse shows a moment when Jesus equipped the church with the ministers so they could accomplish their mission in spreading his word. Leaders in business do this too. By equipping our team with the necessary tools to complete a project, we get happy employees and robust businesses in return.

Leaders can equip their team with:

• Updated Tools and Software

• Strategic Meetings

• Appropriate trainings

• Team building

• Incentives

A is for Appreciation. Emotionally intelligent leaders appreciate the people they work with and invest time, effort and money to show their gratitude.

Ephesians 4:32 says “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.” Show appreciation to your team. Simple words of affirmation can get someone through a difficult day. Leadership approval isn’t a main driver to everyone, but everyone does love hearing a sincere “thank you”. You can also give your time and effort by showing up to meetings on time and contributing to projects, or go out of your way to make someone’s day better by getting coffee or donuts. Sometimes it’s little ways you can show appreciation.

D is for Developing. Emotionally intelligent leaders know their employees are their most important asset. They consistently create development opportunities to help their people grow and advance.

1 Corinthians 15:58 says “Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” The moment an area of the business is doing great is when a manager worries because this is the moment when growth can slow down as we get complacent. Leaders know that when business is boomin’, that’s when you hit the gas. By developing our teams and focusing on continuous improvement, we can break through that complacency.

E is for Enlisting. Emotionally intelligent leaders enlist support from others because they know that their employees and team members are critical to implementing change effectively and efficiently.

Galatians 6:2 says “Bear one another's burdens.” This verse is short but cuts deep. It’s difficult to ask for help, especially when you own the process you need help with. One of the best ways to lead a team is to enlist support from your team, bearing each other’s burdens. How many times have you secretly wanted someone to offer help? Be that for someone else!

R is for Relationships. Emotionally intelligent leaders understand that their success or failure rests on the quality of their relationships with others. They invest heavily in building and deepening those professional relationships.

Romans 12:4-5 says “We have many parts in one body, but the parts don’t all have the same function. In the same way, though there are many of us, each member adds value through a different function.” Ok, I chose this verse to represent “relationships” because it gives us a simple way understand how each of us adds value in the world by working as a group. The best leaders seek the inherent value in each person they meet and build relationships with those people to develop a team of people with different skill sets.

S is for service. Emotionally intelligent leaders realize that they must first give the most to their employees to get the most from employees. They constantly seek ways to serve their employees instead of waiting on employees to serve them.

John 13:15 says "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you," Jesus sets an example for us to follow after washing His disciples' feet, an act of love, humility, and service, He encourages us to follow His lead and serve one another. The best leaders don’t ask what their team can do for them, but what they can do for their team. We should lead by example through our service. For those that don’t know scripture that well, Jesus actually washed his disciples’ feet the day before he was crucified, showing us that it’s possible to give service even on our hardest days.

_{Written by Bailey Hepler}

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