This last week saw the passing of one of the best known leadership 'guru's' of the last 20 years or so - Steven Covey. Best known for his book 'the 7 habits of highly effective people' Covey had spent several years on the leadership circuit training CEO's and various leaders the principles of leadership from his materials. Debate in Christian circles has been around whether or not Covey was a true Christian. It is fairly well known that he has a Mormon background which he acknowledges often enough and some would say his principles are 'biblical' in a sense.
For me, good leadership principles are good principles wherever we may glean them from.
One of the "7 habits" that Covey wrote about was what he called "Sharpening the Saw". This basically was about becoming better at what you do, never settling for a mediocre level, always striving to become more...well, effective. I think that is a great principle that too many "Ministry Professionals" overlook. Too often I have observed people becoming content with being OK at what they do. They can lead OK, preach OK, teach OK - and that is enough. No desire to dig deeper into the faith, figure out why they believe as they do, try to sort through their weaknesses in public ministry and IMPROVE. I don't care who you are, you can always get better and most of us know we need to, deep down. Maybe Covey was wrong about a lot of things - but he kept at it - a quality I wish I would see more often from those entrusted with God's people.
No comments:
Post a Comment