DAILY LIFT FOR LEADERS

Inspiration for People in Charge

Introduction: Living the Lifting Life

Everybody is in charge of something. Bosses oversee workers, parents rule over kids, coaches lead teams, sergeants direct soldiers, presidents control governments—in theory anyway.

What, you don’t fall into any of those categories? You’re still in charge of something! Everyday, you have to discipline your body to get out of bed, your thoughts to focus on work and your emotions to keep from exploding in a howling fit when you’re tired and frustrated.

While Mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani kept a sign on his desk reading, “I’m responsible.” Giuliani thinks “everyone’s accountable, all of the time.”[1]

Being in charge is exhausting business. Presidents, it seems, get gray-headed within weeks of taking on their hefty leadership loads. Moms raising teenagers get lines in their faces, and dads lose hair.

But every effective leader lives a “lifting life.” There are people who weigh us down. Their own personal loads are so heavy that we sense the burden of it when we’re with them, and we leave exhausted. I sat once with a young couple struggling with the husband’s alcoholism. The wife, who could have been lovely and vibrant, appeared as weary and haggard, her glow tarnished and face taut with the load she bore. The young husband and father had lost his capacity to lead his family, and the burden was on her. Leaders are made to lift loads off others, but he had placed a heavy bag of worry on his wife.

The lifting life, on the other hand, is one that simultaneously raises the burdens off the shoulders of those they lead, and hoists up their lives to a higher level. Leaders with lifting lives not only shout to their followers, “Come up here with me!,” but they take the hands of those they lead on the trail, and pull them upward and forward. Our family likes to hike on the craggy trails of west Texas mountains. When we began our forays, one of our six grandchildren was only six years old. What to the rest of us was a mere hill to her was a major climb. I paused at the top of the trail, and watched as her father led her gently up the slope. Sometimes he would take her hand, sometimes he would take her backpack, and sometimes he would carry her on his shoulders.

That is a picture of the lifting life that characterizes effective leaders.

Leaders living lifting lives are themselves lifted. We’re all leaders at some level and all leaders need lifted up—daily. We need inspiration, hope, encouragement, guidance, motivation and confidence. Leaders need physical energy to endure, emotional and mental energy to maintain focus and, above all, spiritual energy to keep reaching for dreams and goals.

Without a lift, leaders go flat. Those ready to follow them up the mountain only get led as far as the bottom of the lowest hill. People in charge have a responsibility to themselves and those they would lead to get lifted up daily.

I have worked with a variety of highly visible bosses—a President of the United States, editor of a large daily newspaper, a U.S. Congressman, and pastor of one of the largest churches in America. Each varied in the lift they received and the resulting style of motivation they provided.

Through 40 years of professional life under such powerful people I have learned the difference between controllers and leaders. Controllers exert their charge by manipulation, intimidation, condemnation and domination, in the words of my friend, Dudley Hall.

Leaders get lifted up and lift you up with them.

“Lifted up” is a phrase with different meanings, depending on the context. For example, the Bible says the person who has intimate relationship with God hasn’t “lifted up his soul to vanity.”[2] That puffy self-exaltation is certainly not what is meant here by leaders being “lifted.”

The “leader lifting” discussed in these pages means encouraging, motivating, inspiring and energizing.

Where do we go to get the best and highest lift? The answer is based on the part of us that receives and generates the most inspiration—the human spirit. Many of us who worked for the President got our lift through the pursuit of power and prestige. The editor inspired us to write creatively. The Congressman gave terrific motivation by reminding us we were part of the great historical flow of America.

All these dynamics inspired our soul. The mind and emotions were excited and stimulated. However, the spirit was untouched.

But Ed Young, the pastor, appealed to our spirit, lifted us up into higher humanity and more effective living. Daily, his pattern was to get “way up high,” and bring us up there with him. The aim of leaders getting a lift is not to improve performance, but to sharpen and enhance them as persons. Performance is the byproduct.

You and I have a body, a soul and a spirit. Three or four days a week, early, I walk and run two miles. When I finish, my pulse is quickened and my body is energized. But at the end of the day, the physical energy pulsing in the morning is depleted. Daily, I read stimulating writers, and my mind and emotions are stirred. But there are times when I am so emotionally or mentally rung out I can’t focus.

Every morning of my life, however, I get lifted up spiritually. This part of us works differently from everything else. Though my body gets tired, my soul weary, the spirit, properly lifted up, goes from “glory to glory,” and ever-increasing strength.[3]

Think about a nuclear reactor. It’s vital to maintain the outer shell that houses the powerful machine. Keeping the pipes and tubes and wires and circuits and buttons at top condition is essential. But the most important task is the care of the core. Apart from the reactor core there is no function for the other parts and the housing is just a big chunk of very thick concrete. n>

So, staying physically fit is of great importance, as is maintaining mental and emotional health. But the human core is the spirit. If the spirit is lifted up, it will bring up the rest of the parts with it.

Only the spiritual can lift the spirit. Centuries ago, an ancient writer put it like this: “Deep calls to deep at the sound of Thy waterfalls; all Thy breakers and Thy waves have rolled over me.”[4] The human spirit is made to receive the refreshing, energizing “waterfalls, breakers and waves” of God’s Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul wrote that “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”[5] The “natural” is the body and soul. They aren’t wired for God’s Spirit—but the human spirit is. “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord,” says Proverbs 20:27.

Thus, the best lift for people in charge—which includes us all—is from that which communicates to the human spirit. The Bible is “God-breathed.”[6] The “breath” of God is the Holy Spirit. So, when a person takes in God’s Word, he or she is receiving spiritual energy. That’s why many people begin the day in prayer and meditation on biblical passages.

In this devotional guide, I’ve sought to group some of the truth-gems from Proverbs relating to management and leadership. The arrangement is structured so you can either read the devotionals day by day or by topic, as you’re dealing with specific issues.

The Bible isn’t just some spiritual, otherworldly fairy food. “Wisdom” is a word appearing often in Proverbs. The original Hebrew term stressed wisdom as knowing practical things. It is the wisdom that comes from a lifetime of experience. This wisdom is that of skills and abilities, not theoretical stuff.

Once I found myself on a NASA airplane in the middle of the night with the rocket scientist, Werner von Braun. We were alone in the passenger compartment of the small government plane. This was the period when von Braun and his team were designing the space shuttle, and he pored over the plans for the space ship, not saying a word, nor even looking up.

Suddenly, though, von Braun folded his papers, stuffed them into his briefcase, got up from his chair, looked at me and said, “I think I will drive now.” He went to the cockpit, asked the pilot to move aside, and flew the airplane to Washington. No one had greater theoretical knowledge about flight than Werner von Braun. But he went beyond the theoretical: he could actually pilot the plane!

That’s the nature of biblical wisdom. It’s for flying the craft, not just understanding aerodynamics. Biblical wisdom is about living real lives. It’s for executives, managers, supervisors, parents, coaches, sergeants and corporals and privates and everybody. Everybody is in charge of something.

This book began in an odd place: a county tax office. I had been asked by the county tax assessor to help him improve the organization. Among other things, I developed a series of management workshops. When I started writing the curriculum, I found there was no better information about management than in the Book of Proverbs. I translated the biblical principles into the tax office management lingo. Each day, as I taught the managers, I delighted to look into smiling faces—right in the midst of a boring county tax office!

I knew the managers were smiling, not because of me, but because they were hearing the word of God, as given in Proverbs. God’s Word, after all, is alive and zesty. It brings delight and strength. God’s Word revives us and brings us joy.

So, I hope as you read through these meditations that you’ll find yourself smiling, too!