A healthy organisation will have a culture of empowerment. As the following “formulas” demonstrate, when you give away responsibility you must also give away authority.
The seven essentials of sharing power with others are:
In the Kingdom of God, the more power you have, the more you should give away. Jesus did this:
The Great Commission marked a profound transition. Until this point, Jesus had been solely responsible for the work of the Kingdom of God on the earth. Now He was turning this responsibility over to His team. Notice that He did not only give them responsibility, He also gave them authority (Matthew 10:1; 16:19; Mark 16:15-20; John 20:23).
Clearly, Jesus was more capable than His disciples to do all of this, yet He gave power away!
Good leaders will remove or reduce unnecessary approval steps, eliminate as many rules as possible, increase people’s flexibility regarding processes, support the exercise of independent judgment, encourage creative solutions to problems, define jobs more broadly (as projects, not tasks), provide the resources necessary for success, and support freedom of organisational communication (both vertically and horizontally).
If people are to succeed in their new and increasing responsibilities, they need to develop their capacities. Leaders must invest in developing their people’s skills and competencies.
Jesus did this in Matthew 28. We do our best when our work is critical to success. Empowerment should be genuinely significant and not merely a token acquiescence to the latest management fad.
When giving a new assignment to an emerging leader, determine what you think his capacities are. Then give him an assignment a little beyond that. Do not make it too high, or else he will fail and be discouraged. But if you make it beneath his capacities, he will also be discouraged by the lack of challenge. If you give him an assignment equal to his capacities he will soon master it and become bored. Go a little higher, and then let him surprise you! Because it is a challenge, he will look to God for success and then rise to his full potential with God’s help. The resulting success will strengthen his faith and establish his confidence in moving ahead into even greater challenges.
Your priority is not simply to get the task done, but to build the person for the future.
Jesus gave His disciples challenging assignments even when they were not perfect. In Mark 16, Jesus gave them an extraordinary assignment immediately after they had failed three times (vv. 8, 11, 13-14)! Two thousand years later, almost 700 million believers around the world demonstrate the wisdom of Jesus’ strategy here; it worked! Certainly, Jesus’ disciples made some errors along the way, but in the long term it worked!
Leaders should assist their people in making connections and building strong relationships with others who can help them accomplish their tasks – both inside and outside the ministry or church. Facilitating this networking is empowering. Also, by making visible heroes and heroines of others, a leader will increase those people’s power as well as build a stronger bond between himself and them.
When a leader genuinely expects his people to do well, they will. Stretch those around you. Give them more than what you think they’re capable of. Moreover, speak life to them, not death. Speak faith and encouragement!
| Challenges in giving power away | Benefits of giving power away |
|---|
| Failure to plan. To simply recruit someone at the last moment to do something is “dumping,” not delegating. The leader must think ahead, communicate thoroughly and commit to effective ongoing oversight. Pride. Of course, we all know that no one else could ever do the job as well as we can! However, the example of Jesus instructs us – He was not too proud to give power away! If Jesus could give power away, then we are not indispensable! Lack of vision. If our vision is limited to our existing four walls, then we will see no need to expand the leadership base. However, if we have a vision for growth and impact, then we know that growth requires leader development and empowerment. Pyramids are made tall by widening their foundations. Spectators become critics; participants become partners. | Everyone avoids burnout (Exodus 18:17-23). Everyone can focus on what they’re called to do and are actually good at (Acts 6:2-4; Romans 12:6-8). We will build leaders. This is one of the key ways in which leaders are built – through accepting responsibilities and “challenging assignments” (Mark 3:14-15). The ministry multiplies. As D.L. Moody said, “It’s better to get ten men to do the work than to do the work of ten men!” |