Blessed are the gentle, merciful, pure in heart and peacemakers... –a partial list of character traits Jesus commends in His followers in Matthew 5:5-9
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. –Proverbs 15:1
When it comes to encouraging other Christians, mature followers of Christ make the same mistake many managers make.
How many times have you heard a manager raise her voice in anger at a worker who can’t keep up? How many times has a supervisor berated his direct report for failing to match the work of others? (Or, even; how many times have you heard a parent say “Why can’t you be more like…”?)
It’s a mistake poor managers make frequently, thinking increased pressure will cause a worker to step up his/her efforts, or improve performance. The result is often just the opposite; the increased pressure makes the worker less able to perform his/her duties well. Even in those instances when such pressure works, the cost long-term rarely makes sense.
Even before industry discovered mechanization and interchangeable parts, managers were experimenting with one-size-fits-all HR formulas. But industrialization seemed to heighten the effect. If we can make steel conform to rigid standards, managers seemed to think, surely we can get humans to be more alike in their work behaviors.
Effective leaders discard that thinking quickly. They recognize inflexible discipline and unrelenting sternness have diminishing returns. In fact, the difference between a manager and a leader lies somewhere along this fault line in management theory. Managers force their workers to march to their cadence, or the cadence of stretch-the-envelope productivity or profitability targets. Leaders sense the most effective cadence of the team, and shift their pace (and their targets) accordingly. Managers fail to see quickly enough when their team falters, and that failure to react shows up in increased errors, accidents, injuries, absenteeism, worker dissatisfaction and turnover, with long-term diminishing effects on profitability and productivity. Leaders are already attuned to their workers, and are able to react rapidly to changing dynamics, often saving projects, teams, and even individual workers in the process.
Unfortunately, many organizational structures, even whole fields of business, reward managers while punishing leaders. The idea that workers are a disposable commodity is an all-too common part of our economic framework.
Christians make the same mistake with each other. We form in our own minds a picture of what a “good Christian” looks like (often the picture is us), and then we lay that standard up against others, barking at the places we think they aren’t measuring up. The bigger the gap, the louder we yell.
Even when our standard happens to be correct, the barking, the yelling, or even just the malevolent sniffs of disapproval can be disabling to many a fellow follower of Christ. Especially when so many of us live in that place Paul describes in Romans 7 when he says, essentially, that “the things I wish I did, I don’t do; and the things I wish I didn’t do, I do”. Frozen by our own sense of inadequacy, we’re completely disabled by a “superior” Christian’s public assaults on that private fear.
How we treat each other as followers of Christ has a huge impact on our spiritual growth. It also has a huge effect on evangelism, as those who don’t know Christ measure His Kingdom by our actions.
Words of judgment and rebuke are best reserved for a loving Savior working through the Holy Spirit. For the rest of us, our default response to the trials and their failures of others must be one of gentle concern. The Kingdom of God was not built by force, but by the unyielding strength of a Savior who taught by example that the meek will inherit the earth.
--Randy Kilgore
rkilgore@marketplacenetwork.com
www.marketplacenetwork.com
