Mar 17

Philemon 1: ⁸ Therefore, though I have abundant boldness in Christ to charge you to do what is fitting and required and your duty to do, ⁹ Yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you just for what I am—I, Paul, an ambassador [of Christ Jesus] and an old man and now a prisoner for His sake also (AMP)

 

As a leader at work and a dad at home, I find that I live in these verses daily.  I've always tried to practice an "ask, tell, spank (yes - and hard!)" parenting style.  I ask my kids to do something to teach them how to show respect, I tell them to teach authority and obedience, and I spank them to teach them that there are painful consequences to disobedience.  Many of you know I'm not given to much patience so I'm sure that there wasn't even any punctuation between my asking and telling on many occasions.  Furthermore, I defaulted to applying this style too often in marriage and being quick to assume authority over one's spouse is a real mistake.  In spite of my mistakes, however, I remain committed to the Biblical support of this approach and offer these verses in Philemon as the support for step one (see Eph 6:1-3 and Proverbs 13:24 for the others).  It's still a little too early to see how successful I've been, but to date I have no regrets as far as how Ryan and Kerianne have turned out so far.  God has truly been good to them and me as well.   

Working with adults at work and church is a little different.  I work in a large organization at Eglin AFB and have supervisory and leadership responsibilities over a many adults.  The same rules are a little more difficult to apply.  The ask and tell part works ok, but being a military organization confounds things.  Some people appreciate the "asking" as a sign of mutual respect and open-mindedness.  Others are more accustomed to a strict military style and hate the ambiguity of requests and much prefer someone who barks clear and concise orders.  In addition, a leader has to be cautious of moving to the "spank" (obviously not literally) mode too early.  I've found that most adults truly want to comply with the desires of their superiors, but either move at a different pace (as a very high type "A" personality I don't have patience with people who can't get into my fast-paced time-space continuum), or failed to fully understand what they were asked to do.  Consequently I find myself explaining too often what I want in great detail, to too many people, too many times; a highly stressful issue for a type A person and too often tempts me to do too much myself (more stress).  This teaches one the importance, of respect and patience with others as a measure of self protection against burn-out.  I've got a long way to go and a highly last week is clear evidence. 

Lord may I be an inspiring and challenging leader.  One who communicates a clear understanding of  who You want us to be and where You would want us to go as a team and allowing them to build the detailed steps of how to get there in each of their respective areas rather than telling everyone each and every step of how to accomplish the corporate goals.  If I err, may it be on the side of respect, rather than dictatorship.