Forget Policy and Procedure

Not because you have to

I’ve just been chatting with a friend about the difference between serving from a spirit of willingness and serving because you feel like to have to..

I have been challenged for quite a while by 1 Peter 5:2-3

Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

What I always found challenging was the statement “not because you must, but because you are willing”.

It is one thing to do something out of duty,(and particularly leadership), it is another thing entirely to do it from free will.

One of the great challenges I have found in leadership is to lead without having to “control” your people but to inspire them to make free choice.

It is so tempting to look for the job descriptions or policies that will form the basis of good leadership.

The McDonald’s system is clever because it is able to produce a consistent product across the globe. The system allows less skilled people to do more skilled work. The energy in a good franchise goes into the development of reproducible systems.

It is interesting that Jesus didn’t go for a franchise model.. He told a story about a different Kingdom, with a different value base, and in himself modelled what he was talking about.  He was more concerned with hearts than behaviour.

It fascinates me how free Jesus’s disciples were with him. Peter felt free to directly disagree with him, Judas was free to betray him and Thomas was free to doubt him. Jesus did not lead by control but by the love and trust of his followers.

In fact it was the Pharisees that focussed on “policy and procedure”, on behaviour rather than heart. In Matthew 23:1-4 Jesus basically tells his disciples to listen to what the Pharisees are saying, but never do what they do.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: ”The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

He then goes on to let the Pharisees have both barrels of his frustration with the whole chapter becoming an exposition of exactly why the focus on the external is the wrong way to go.

Over the years a quote from Stephen Covey has hung around in the back of my brain as I wrestled with what leadership actually means:

You can hire the hands and backs of people, but they volunteer their minds and hearts.

Ultimately every leader is looking for volunteers and not conscripts irrespective of how much people are being paid.
One of the leading academics in the field of volunteering, Ivan Scheier, PhD said:

The broadest, and maybe the most meaningful definition of volunteering: Doing more than you have to because you want to, in a cause you consider good.

So that’s what effective leadership produces: willing hearts from people who are free to choose.

Jesus was the ultimate leader. He didn’t need to establish a McDonald’s system of policy and procedure.

He cared most about people’s hearts and minds, and they were free to choose their own responses.

The responses they chose are still changing the world.