Competent Leadership - Part Three

The final three areas to assist you in your leadership assessment are just as important as the first six.

Planning

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

Proper planning requires vision. Planning helps you set goals to achieve your task or advance your cause. As the FM 22-100 says, “Planning is intended to support a course of action so that an organization can meet an objective.” Planning is not something to do at the last moment. Planning requires that you know the end goal in order to act in the correct manner to accomplish it. Once you know the end, you can begin to get there.

I could quote several different biblical passages about the word “plans” and will. All have to do with committing your plans to God and find success or with learning to get the advice or counsel of others.

Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3 (NIV)

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)

Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance. Proverbs 20:18 (NIV)

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. Proverbs 21:5 (NIV)

Planning, according to the FM 22-100, involves forecasting, setting goals and objectives, developing strategies, establishing priorities, delegating, sequencing and timing, organizing, budgeting, and standardizing procedures. This is just the beginning.

• What is the hardest part of planning?
• Are there other people you should involve in the planning process that you have yet to involve?
• How are your planning techniques affecting the stability of your employees, volunteers, or peers?
• When including others in your planning process, are you undermining their ideas or mining for their ideas? Undermining means you get your way, and mining means you are showing respect for their opinions and abilities. Which are you doing?
• Are you training your people to replace you? Why or why not?

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. Proverbs 15:22 (NIV)

Use of Available Systems

Success in today’s fast paced and competitive world require that we use the best of technology and the best possible methods and tools in order to be at our best. That’s a lot of best but to get excellence you have to strive for excellence. The same goes for church leadership. The church that spends its time on outdated (and not so biblical) means of caring for and attracting new people will find itself slowly becoming extinct.

• Are you employing the best technology for your organizational needs?
• Are you employing the best analytical measures in probing the processes of your organization?
• Are you using the best technological means available to manage your organization’s information? Do your people have the same access to technology?
• Are you using the best methods to plan, to execute, and to assess your training?

Professional Ethics
You will never escape ethics so you may as well embrace them. Your rules of conduct and the height of conduct to which you hold your people will determine your successes and failures. You never win when you do not act according to the ethical standards of your organization.

• Are you behaving in a manner consistent with the ethical standards of your organization?
• Are you setting an example to follow?
• Are you sensitive to the ethical dilemmas facing your organization and are you prepared to act as you face each one?
• Who determines your moral guidelines?
• Are you using an informed, rational decision-making process to reason through and resolve ethical dilemmas?