Values - Leadership Prayers
Values
Infuse the right values in our hearts, God. Start with me.
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
Values control behavior. We act on the basis of what we believe really matters, what is right and good. Whoever influences the core values in a group is, in fact, the leader. That process must begin with the values God instills in the leader.
I REALIZE I cannot control everything, God, even through endless rules, regulations, and directives. I do not want an immobilized democracy in which everyone votes on every little thing. Nor do I want a demoralized dictatorship where I have to decide everything and think up everything. I want a true community with strong relationships and effective actions guided by commitment to the same core values.
We want the right values, those that make us a healthy community in which achieving our goals is our means of becoming better people and a better organization. So these values must move us toward the right goals. Guide our selection of these values. If we blunder here, nothing else will work right.
Your call to leadership always includes your provision of what I need to lead. By your grace I can do a lot of things to keep the right values before us and to model them myself, but only your Spirit can plant them deep and strong in everyone’s heart. Make me a true spiritual leader, a nexus in the dynamic relationship of your Spirit and the spirit of these people I love.
I know the odds are against this working. It feels safer to try to tell everyone what to do instead of trusting them to act on their own in concert with these values. But help me to respect them as the individuals you created them to be so they can grow and be truly great for your glory.
I want to be a spiritually sensitive leader, to enable people to sense more clearly and powerfully the call and guidance of your Spirit in their lives. I know this kind of leadership is rare because it is a matter of the spirit, but, God, that is the kind of leader I want to be.
As the leader, I am responsible for the values we all live by. It must begin within me. Give me a healthy and strong spirit, for there is no going back. I feel a deep longing for the future. Help us to live the values that will take us there. I want it, God; I ache for it—for how things could be.
Our values must move us toward the right goals.
Infuse the right values in our hearts, God.
Start with me.
Reflections
They had a truly noble mission, an inspiring vision, and a leadership disaster. The CEO was strong and convincing. He had rescued the place single-handedly, but unfortunately he was trying to run it the same way.
Masterful at sales, he was terrible at marketing. On the road he could present the concepts and programs of the organization, close the sale, and keep the revenue coming. But back home the staff doubted that he was representing them accurately. They did not trust him or follow him; they simply obeyed him. He could not watch and control all of them all the time, so each department did whatever seemed best.
The staff was competent and dedicated but plagued by confusion about the core values. Informal leaders were determining the operative values, which were increasingly at odds with what the CEO said and did. The resulting contradictions and inefficiencies threatened to overwhelm all their good intentions.
An effective leader will infuse the right mixture of values in an organization, like a tea bag infuses a cup of hot water. When this is done properly, the corporate culture absorbs the values so pervasively that it is no longer a cup of hot water; it is a unique cup of tea. Every part of the organization shares the same values; every drop tastes the same. Everyone knows what really matters, and they know that the leader lives with a passion for the same values as everyone else.
