Delegation - Leadership Prayers
Delegation
I cannot do this alone, God. Who are the leaders I sincerely should follow?
God takes the Spirit that is on the leader and puts it on the followers. Numbers 11:17, author’s paraphrase
The highest form of delegating is to lay the leadership mantle on key people for particular goals and then follow their lead.
I KNOW only so much, God, and I can do only so much. If this organization is limited to my abilities alone, we will fall short of our potential together and miss your vision for us.
Help me identify other leaders for this effort. Enable me to see what each one can do best, show me how to recruit them, and point me to the right responsibility for the right person.
When I delegate, please give me the courage to release control and follow.
Sometimes I feel that leading is mostly about following, about deciding who is the best person to follow in some particular area. I depend on you to sharpen my intuition and sensitivity so I will choose the right people and delegate well.
How ironic, God, that the longer and better I lead, the more I depend on the skills and expertise of others. Someone else is better than I am at every task that needs to be done. They lead me in their areas. I must trust our success to them, so I must trust you to guide my selection of them.
I need you to enable me to get the right person to take responsibility for the right goal. Whose life situation, spiritual gifts, natural talents, interests, and motivation are right? Who is my leader in this area, God?
Help me to be clear about the distant goals and about who needs to do what to reach those goals. When I do this well, the spirit of the one to whom I delegate will respond with zeal. My own spirit will rejoice, and I will follow that person with confidence.
By your grace, my leadership will either enhance or restrain the work of your Spirit in those who lead with me, making them more effective or less effective. Those I choose to follow will have a profound impact on the results in the organization, and they will have a profound impact on me.
The longer and better I lead, the more I depend on the skills and expertise of others.
Point me toward them, and make them greater leaders than I am.
I cannot do this alone, God. Who are the leaders I should follow?
Reflections
I learned the essence of delegation from Bill Pollard. Before his years of executive leadership with ServiceMaster Corporation, he was vice president of Wheaton College. One fall the director of computer systems resigned suddenly just as school was starting. By November no replacement had been found, frustrations were rising rapidly, and Bill called me in to propose that I take the position. I was a Spanish teacher at the time.
I pleaded gross technical ignorance, but he explained that we could solve the technical problems once we had solved the people and systems problems. I figured if he was brave enough to offer it to me, I would be brave enough to try it. I suspect neither of us understood how little the other one knew about computer systems.
He made it plain to me that the whole institution depended on the computer system, that users were angry, and that it was my mess to clean up. He offered suggestions, required progress reports, and expected results, but he followed my lead and he supported me, even to the point of releasing staff and creating policy. I responded to his thorough and masterful delegation by working, learning, growing, and producing like never before.
Bill Pollard is a godly man and a powerful leader. I doubt that he would ever say he was a follower of Rich Kriegbaum on anything whatsoever. But with me he was better than he knew. He delegated—and developed my leadership from his followership.
