Dare Great Things For Christ

Daring great things is where leadership begins but leadership ends in the hearts of those that follow us.  Its not enough just to be doing things or doing them well, we have to do them in a way that other people can associate with and make it their own.  How do I make my great accomplishments a legacy that other people can benefit from?  We have to learn how to make our spirit come alive in the hearts of others.  Ironically, has to be concerned about his followers.

Before we do anything it is important to stop and plan how we are going to do it.  Afterall, failing to plan is planning to fail.  Part of this planning includes looking at where we could actually falter along the way.  And understanding the reasons we fail can become a big reason why we succeed.  In this fourth talk of the series we look at one of the biggest reasons we fail: fatigue, burnout, and being frustrated along the way. 

One of the most common struggles that people have is passing from planning into action.  We all know what we should be doing, but actually doing it can seem an insurmountable hurdle.  How do we pass from having good intentions to actually having good actions?  Every leader has to do this.  St. Thomas Aquinas gives us the key.  He says the fear of risk can be overcome by love and by the knowledge of what is right.  Putting this into practice can be the difference between failure and success.

Without a doubt leadership is hard and challenging and sometimes we get so used to its challenge that we forget that we can make it successful.  We learn to get used to the very things that can cause our downfall.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  One of the big elements we struggle with as leaders is our ability to plan effectively - our ability to see our way through changing circumstances.  This ability is impeded by what we call “fog”.  And understanding “fog” is the key to overcoming it. 

Leaders want success.  In fact, our people count on us to provide success.  That’s why it’s important to know where we can fail.  Being able to identify the pitfalls along our road is sometimes as important as knowing where we are going.  In this series of five talks, we examine the five pitfalls that plague leaders and hinder our ability to succeed.  The first among these five is fatalism and I am so looking forward to breaking it down and opening it to Christ’s hope in your lives.

Most people acknowledge that humility is a good thing – something that we should desire.  But most leaders struggle to find how humility can be incorporated into their leadership.  Afterall, don’t we need to be assertive?  Controlling?  In Charge?  It would seem that if I am a leader and I am humble that I am weak and incapable of providing the vision and the drive necessary for my people.  But this is not the case.  In the third chapter of St. Paul’s letter to Titus we see that God’s vision for humility is a powerful one.  In all the books of the bible we find God’s wisdom

We all know that leaders are responsible for getting things done, leading their organizations to be productive, but sometimes we forget that leadership also sometimes has a softer side and that a leader is just as responsible for the moral climate of his organization as he is for its efficiency.  In St. Paul’s letter to Titus, Chapter 2, St. Paul outlines his vision for the leader as the guardian of excellence.  And what he wrote Titus then still holds true for us today.

One of the most intriguing figures in the New Testament is St. Paul.  Most commentators spend their lives speaking of Paul’s theology and his relationship with Christ.  But Paul was also a leader who left a legacy of leadership to his followers and one of his closest disciples was Titus.  In Paul’s letter to Titus we find the heart of a leader speaking to his leader about the task he has appointed him,  In Paul’s own words a leader is God’s steward.

There are a lot of things in common between business leaders and mountain climbers.  In the same way that mountain climbers dare heights by precipitous paths, so the business leader needs to walk a fine line.  So many things need to be balanced at the moral level and inside of themselves in order to do what they do and do it at the service of Christ.  But there are principles to guide them.  One of these principles is that everything we do we do for others.  Our success means the success of everyone involved in the process. 

In our work with the Catholic leader, one of the most sensitive subjects is whether or not they should make money.  For some reason making a profit in our business has been associated with guilt and corruption.  But is this association always accurate?  Is it okay for a Catholic business leader to actually make a profit?  And if they do make a profit what are they supposed to do with it?  How does Christ qualify our success and how does a profitable Christian business look different from those of the world?