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Genesis Self Leadership-Agenda-Incrementality
Presentation
Leadership – one of the most researched, studied and talked about topics. Here are just some o fthe theories over the last centuries
1970s 1980s – Transformational Theory
1960s late – 1970s – Transactional Theory
1960s – Contingency Theory
1940s-1950s – Behavioral – certain types of behavior define leadership
1930 -40s – Trait Theory – people are either born or are made with certain qualities that will make them excel in leadership roles
1840s – Great Man Theory – first identifiable body of research in the modern era – that great leaders are born
But long before, the Great Man theory in 1840 there was another theory. Not of a Great Man but a theory given by a Great God the Creator, A Theory given by a Great God form the very beginning of time.
God as he always does, gives – teaches humanity a Divine Blueprint on anything that is important essential to human existence.
God’s blueprint for what true leadership ought to look like and live like was from the beginning – IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED LEADERSHIP, I call it Genesis leadership. And while we want to/should study the great leadership theories, our study of leadership will be incomplete, deficient lacking if we don’t study God’s leadership theory found in the 31 verses of Genesis chapter 1.
My book GL in 8 Days does exactly that, looks at leadership as God demonstrated the Genesis leadership blueprint during in the biblical account of creation.
Yes the biblical account of creation found in Genesis 1 is Gods blueprint / template for leaders who want to be as transformative, as impactful and as creative as God was when he transformed the world from chaos, confusion and dysfunction in verse 2 and made such a transformative change impact that in verse 31 God himself looked upon the completion of his creation and said it was Very Good.
GOD LEADING BUT NO FOLLOWERS !! Intuitively we don’t see God in Creation as an example of leadership. There was no organization, no followers, no people. But the first thing we have to understand is that leadership is first and foremost about leading Purpose before leading people.
At first glance, that’s why we can’t “glance at the word, we can’t just skim through the Word,. Got to dig deep, beneath surface. But at first glance it looks like its just God by Himself with the power of his word just out there creating stuff. Not much leadership going on. It is not until towards the end of the Creation account in verse 28 that we see any semblance of a team, an organization. Not until verse 28 when God says, “let US make man in OUR”. Then later on God creates Man to manage the created works when in verse 26 – let them have dominion verse 28 and man was to be fruitful, multiply and replenish”.
So not until verse 26 do you see a team coming together, the Godhead to create man and man to manage creation. The creation of an organization always / must include creative leaders and empowered management working together – we talk about this in GLT.
God waits until day 6 before he begins to engage his team and begins to delegate. Some leaders love this part of leadership – delegating. That called being a boss but hey being a boss is not being a leader, it’s just being bossy! So God begins to delegate in verse 28 and because he had already been working in verse 2 – 25, his delegation is effective. The principle leadership lesson here is this “Delegation works if the delegator works”
Ok let me illustrate how delegation works only if the delegator works.
Mom & Dad are going out and leaves me in charge of making sure the task of pulling out the weeds from the garden is done. Get your brothers to help you they say. Well they didn’t need to say more. So I proceed to flaunt my authority and begin to delegate. You do this section you do that section – I was in delegating heaven!! And as my brother’s tiled in the hot sun I was raiding the refrigerator and enjoying Mom’s delicious homemade coconut ice-cream!! My brothers were not too happy and began to rebel – hey if you are not doing anything why should we they said. I couldn’t understand their problem – I mean I was the leader, Dad had left me to lead to be in charge – Leadership Is not about being in charge it is about being involved –
<<< Leaders who try to be in charge without first being involved insult the intelligence of the people they are trying to lead. Bing in charge without 1st being involved can cause irreparable Injury to their Institution>>
Of course Dad and Mom get home and nothing is done, a few weeds pulled out but the task as substantially not done. Of course my Dad proceeded to teach me a leadership lesson, with the aid & assistance of his trusted belt!! But what he taught me is that delegation works if the delegator works. This principle I don’t know where Dad got it from but my / our /your Dad/Heavenly Father laid down this lesson of leadership way back in Genesis because in the beginning God created leadership
So by contrast verse 2 – 25 it doesn’t seem like God was leading IF you subscribe to the conventional definitions of leadership. Conventional definitions always define leadership in context of leading people but Genesis leadership shows us that leadership is first and foremost about leading Purpose before Leading People. When people leave as they often would, when people act up and cut up and get on your very last nerve as a leader, if you don’t have a purpose, if your leadership premise was validated based on the presence of people and not the power of purpose then when people leave – leaders get frustrated discouraged and want to throw up their hands in despair. Purpose before People, you can’t lead people effectively if you are not first leading purpose.
When you have no one to lead but yourself it is purpose that keeps you going. This leading of yourself – SELF LEADERSHIP type of leadership is what God is teaching on Day 1 to Day 5 when by himself he is leading himself towards the accomplishment of Purpose – the Genesis Purpose. (Purpose is communicated/articulated by Agenda -e.g. board meeting agenda = purpose of meeting. Agenda = articulation of purpose)
So day 1 to day 5 God is showing that before you begin to lead others – verse 26 – 31) that leading yourself must precede, come before any attempt to lead others. You should not try to lead others if you have not first been able to lead yourself.
What God demonstrated verse 2 – 25, was the NB of self-leadership and that effective self-leadership must precede leading others.
It is challenging and even daunting to lead in the absence of followers. To keep on planning the work and working the plan, staying on course, on agenda when you are the only one in the building! It was not challenging or daunting for God because my God is all powerful, mighty and strong but God is teaching here, creating a genesis leadership principle that is part of his Genesis leadership blueprint. It’s the principle of self-leadership must precede, is an essential prerequisite for leading others.
How do you self-lead? By self-evaluation which includes two components
- Self-awareness / self-observation
- Self-management – adjusting performance to improve on what you observed about your self/performance when needed.
This is the process of self-evaluation – being aware of your performance and managing yourself so that your performance is good. This is what God was doing every time the Scripture says, “and God say what he had made and it was good”. This is the essence of self-leadership: self-evaluation – just as leaders when leading people ought to evaluate the performance of others so to leaders must engage in self-evaluation as part of effective self-leadership.
Self-leadership – evaluation from Paul
Galatians 6:3 – For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.
2 Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves
1 Corinthians 10:12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. My translation – check yourself before you wreck yourself. That’s self-leadership!
SEGWAY TO PURPOSE/AGENDA
We talked about purpose earlier – that effective leaders, Genesis leaders lead purpose first before leading people. And in self-leadership when you have no people to lead, that is when you need a powerful purpose.
I believe, could it be that God in teaching mode used day 1 – 5 as a teaching tool, working by himself, leading Himself so that he could illustrate to leaders that it is not always about the size of your followership, not always about the size of the crowd in the inauguration ball that drives or should drive your commitment to leadership.
Agenda – purpose.
The first thing that you must know as a leader about self-leadership is that leadership is first and foremost not about leading people but about leading purpose. (purpose = agenda) and that an Agenda articulates purpose.
Think of a Meeting Agenda – the agenda gives the purpose for the meeting. It tells you that the purpose of the meeting is to discuss certain items.
So purpose = agenda and agenda = purpose. The first thing you have to get in your spirit, internalize and understand as a leader is that leadership is first about leading purpose before leading people.
This is the bedrock of self-leadership, because when you lose people from your team, it is your purpose that will keep the fire of leadership burning within you. It’s the why that drives the what. Leaders must have powerful purpose. It takes a powerful purpose to persevere in leadership.
It’s the purpose that pulls the people, no purpose people leave
SO God had no people to lead on Day 1 – 5 but he had a purpose. Purpose always precedes people
So sure, God could have created people on day one but I believe he didn’t – so that we could uncover this powerful paradigm about leadership = its first about purpose before people.
This does not minimize the NB of people or delegate them to second place but is teaches that you cannot lead people effectively without leading them in the context of purpose. That is what I call the Genesis Leadership Agenda.
The Genesis 1 narrative never articulates what God’s agenda was but it is really hidden in plain sight. I call this reverse engineering. IN my book we look at God’s leadership agenda by looking at the end of the creation narrative. Verse 26 ++ everything God created is now recited in relationship to man. When you read it you see how the other stuff God created was created FOR man
So Man, the creation and deployment of man, was the final objective, the purpose the intended outcome.
Everything created was for and to support man Psalms 8:6
You can usually tell what a person intended to do by what they have done. Yeah, in human experience sometimes this may not always be true but more often than not it is. People tend to end up where they intended to go. Generally speaking our path is determined by our purpose and you can tell a person’s purpose by looking at their path. If I take I 85 North from the city of Atlanta and if I stop driving and unpack my truck when I get to New York/my uncle’s house, my final destination then you can say with a great level of assurance that my purpose when I left Atlanta and headed up I85 North, that my purpose was to get to New York – my uncle’s house.
So God’s final destination in the Genesis story was the creation of man, and not just the creation of man but creating man and tasking him with the responsibility to be fruitful, multiply, replenish and have dominion.
So God’s purpose is revealed in His final destination i.e. his final outcome. Everything God did was guided by this purpose this agenda. So for Adam & Eve to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion over the earth, God had to create an earth ! For man to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion, there had to be light. Imagine Adam & Eve trying to do what god commanded them to do in total darkness. Or imagine them trying to get around if the earth was still covered with water.
God says to them see I have given you the herbs for meat. In other words I created plants and trees etc. so that you can fulfill the purpose for which I created you. Its as if God is passing the baton to man here in verse 26++.
When the 1st 3 runners run their leg of the relay race they all run with the purpose of making sure the baton gets handed over to the final runner – the anchor leg. You know that the purpose was to get the baton to the anchor leg because the actions of the previous runners all pointed to that outcome / intent.
Applying this Genesis Principle of Agenda
No Purpose = No Agenda
No Agenda = No Alignment of Action.
Agenda Aligns Action = makes all your actions cohesive interdependent to support
Action needs to Affirm Agenda- can’t be driving on I85 South hoping to get to New York which is North of Atlanta. Sticking to the Agenda will ensure that the actions you take as leader will be in alignment with your agenda.
Everything God did in first 5 days was in alignment with creating man to be fruitful, to multiply and to have dominion. God says to man – I have given you dominion over the fish of the sea – 5th day, over the birds of the air DAY 5, and over every living thing that [h]moves on the earth DAY 6.” Verse 29 God says to Man I have given you every herb, every tree DAY 3. But for herbs and trees to grow God had to separate water from dry land – DAY 2. And we know that without light for photosynthesis trees & plans cant grow so to give to man herbs & trees God had to first create light DAY 1. And God knew that for man to accomplish the tasks of replenish the earth etc man would need a way to measure time so God on FDAY 4 created lights in the firmament to divide day and night. BTW scientist tell us that the cycle of day & night is essential for all life.
So in your organizations, teams and in your personal life as you lead yourself do you know your agenda, do you have that overarching underlying reason for leading, for living? If you do, do your actions every day fall in line with your agenda.
The surest way to go now where fast is to take action without agenda. Action Absent Agenda = Anarchy
INCREMENATILITY
Sometimes we get excited with the agenda and we try to accomplish the agenda instantaneously. Even if you could get your agenda done in record time, sometimes it may be wise to break it down in increments.
God could have created everything in one day. Let there be light Day 1, firmament Day 2, grass, herbs & trees (day 3), lights in firmament/Sun/Moon Day 4, fowl & fish Day 5, ling creatures Day 6.
At least he could have combined a couple of days. Like why did he create light on Day 1 but wait until day 4 three days later to create lights in the firmament/Sun/Moon? I would have at least done those two on the same day!
But a Genesis leader understands that he/she does not always have to do what they have the power to do. Genesis principle of incrementality teaches that often the wise course of action may not always be the fastest course of action. Speed IS overrated. We live in a world where speed is glorified and more failures and disasters in business, religion, families, relationships have been caused by people trying to accomplish agenda too fast. Oprah – you can have it all, not all at once”.
Learn to pace yourself. Major corporations, especially Japanese corporations, realizing that more exercise could possibly make their employees healthier and more productive, began to schedule exercise programs during work hours. Honda. productivity increased, and the employees logged far fewer sick days. Other Japanese companies soon followed suit, scheduling on-the-job exercise sessions for all workers, not just those in manual labor positions. Again, productivity increased, the number of accidents and sick days fell, and over time, the cost of health care dropped. Companies who allow their workers to take periodic exercise breaks have noticed that in addition to the health benefits mentioned before, employee morale and their sense of camaraderie has increased, and that their employees feel as if they are more a part of a community than a corporation. Google – often cited as “the best company in America to work for” – not only allows its employees to get up from their desks and exercise, they mandate it. the wisdom of this approach shows up in the “bottom line,” in the form of higher productivity, lower absenteeism, and lower overall health costs.
Increments = Steps
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord Psalms 37: 23
Children of Israel in bondage 400 years. God puts his hand a man Moses to lead his people out of Egyptian bondage. God could have delivered them with one miraculous act of deliverance. Yet God sends X # plagues leading up to the final curse on the firstborn. That softens Pharaoh’s heart and Pharaoh decides to let the COI go free. Why didn’t God send this plague first, why go through all the other plagues. I don’t know the mind of God but this is yet another example of God teaching the importance of increments, taking steps to achieve an objective that maybe you could accomplish without the steps.
Jesus died and stayed dead for 3 days. He could have died and immediately showed his power over death and the grave by an instant resurrection? Why 3 days
Sometimes in our lives God uses this principle of increments. Those times we get impatient with God. Mary & Martha need God to achieve an outcome instantly. Their brother, Lazarus, Jesus friend was on the brink of death. They needed Jesus to say the word and heal Lazarus. Jesus deliberately chose to not do what he had the power to do: i.e. immediately heal Lazarus.
He had done this before – Mathew 15: 21-28 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
John 4: 50- Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.
51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, thy son liveth.52 Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. 53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.
Yet with his friend Lazarus on the brink of death and with Jesus having the power to speak the word and heal his friend; Jesus takes painfully slow steps to get to his friend Lazarus. The Bible tells us it took Jesus 4 days to get top Lazarus, 4 days when he could have taken 4 minutes – 4 seconds to say the word and heal his friend.
Why does god sometimes take so long to accomplish his agenda for our lives. You have prayed and fasted and in faith you believe that God will give you the breakthrough you need – but God implements this Genesis principle of incrementality and though he has the power to give us an instant breakthrough he takes us through these steps. But the fact that God answers our prayers incrementally doesn’t mean he isn’t answering our prayers. So often we look for God’s answers in its final form that we can’t see or appreciate the steps towards the blessing that God incrementally is working together, stitching together to accomplish his good for us. Like Paul says in Romans all things work together for good to them that love the lord.
SO as a leader, leading organizations, business, churches, leading your family or leading yourself learn the power of the Genesis Leadership Principle of incrementality.
David anointed by Samuel to be King – handpicked by God but sent back to take care of sheep for another 15 years. 15 years from the time he was first anointed by Samuel to the time he became king over Judah. It was another seven years before David was anointed king over all Israel. This means David waited over 20 years of his life to be made king.
What to do when living through God’s increments/steps? What did God do during the increments of creation. If a day is 24 hours, a morning and an evening what did god do for the 23 hours and 59 minutes after God created light in day 1 and the end of that day, that 1st increment / step.
23 hours and 59 minutes. It couldn’t have taken God more than 1 minute to say, “Let there be light” The bible says at his word, let there be light “there was light”. That’s it. But it wasn’t for another full day before God took that second step, increment of creation on Day 2. SO I ask again, what was God doing for the 23 hours and 59 minutes after he declared let there be light?
We can tell that God spent time that Day evaluating what he created. Each day he said what he created “was good” to be able to say something I good you would have had to evaluate, examine, test it and prove its goodness. I’m sure he didn’t spend 23 hours and 59 minutes to evaluate his light or whatever he created that day. But it does suggest that one thing we can do between the steps towards achieving our agenda is to before we rush into the next step we ought to spend some time and evaluate and examine our performance.
TAKE TIME TO ENJOY EACH STEP OF COMPLETION, EACH ACHIEVEMENT
Another way to live & lead in increments is to stop and enjoy your accomplishments. As you achieve steps, targets take some time to appreciate how God has led you to this point. Spend time in gratitude before rushing into the next project/step/phase.
Learn to Decompress – you would live longer !
Divers the bends – decompression sickness can be fatal. Deep see scuba divers – my brother used to scuba dive. They have to return to the surface in stages. So they come up a few feet – pause few minutes up a few more feet pause again. Step by step – in increments.
As a leader, you can literally kill an organization or in self-leadership you can kill yourself if you do not follow this Genesis Leadership Principle of Incrementality.
Ever heard of “leadership burnout”?
It’s another act of Gods amazing love – this principle of incrementality. God is really protect us leaders from ourselves. Leaders tend to be type A personalities that a very driven. The truth is without this principle of incrementality we may well drive our selves to leadership burnout and leadership and sadly physical death.
SUMMARY
Leadership is more than an academic or professional exercise, its more than an organizational skill – it is a divine calling – part of our human DNA – we are all given the gift of leadership in some sphere of life.
What God gives to us is his gift to us, what we do with what God gives to us is our gift to God. What are you going to do with the gift of leadership?
Copyrighted (c) 2018 W Vernon Murray