Ps 37:3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness.
Trust: — firm reliance on the integrity, ability, etc, of a person or thing….to have confidence in, to hope.
Trust is birthed out of : Integrity, Honesty and Purity
- Integrity ~ in responsibilities, people will see you are a person of your word and will trust you
- Honesty ~ others will trust you if you always tell the truth, do not manipulate, no half truths and no hiding of information God is a man of integrity and honesty, He doesn’t manipulate, He shares His heart, gives boundaries, tells the truth e.g.
We know the middle verse of the bible tells us Ps 118 v 8
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
How does a leader overcome the issue of not putting confidence in man?
In order for man to trust man their ought to be boundaries established e.g. identifying the range and boundaries of performance and behaviour expected. However over time I have witnessed many leaders issuing instructions without establishing boundaries the result confusion and frustration.
Many leaders fall into the trap of the “Mirror Principle”! This principle more than often leads to confusion and disappointment in other words people are measured against the leaders characteristics and behaviors result people do not perform the standard expected, but what standard? There own or and agreed standard.
Example when I was younger, I was in the Air Force and posted to Cyprus on arriving I was told by someone in the unit to watch out when you meet the boss, for he will measure you i.e. your attitudes, values , beliefs and behaviors to his son and oh by the way, no one measure up to his standards nor his son’s. True enough the arrival interview with the boss took some 45 minutes in which he questioned me about my attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviors. The result as promised I never measured up to him nor his son.
There are three catastrophic errors that leaders fall in to when building trust, developing and assessing performance of others in the church they are:
- First Impression (primacy effect): Leaders form an overall impression about the person on the basis of some particular characteristics of the person identified by them.
- Halo Effect: The observation made by the leader is completely founded on the basis of a perceived positive quality, feature or trait.
- Horn Effect: The individual’s performance or behaviour is completely appraised on the basis of a negative quality or feature perceived.
You see man measured man by his standards, the question is are they the right standards! I am still talking about TRUST, you see a good leader will use the 4 E’s, i.e. Examine ~ Explore ~ Expand & Empower (that is another topic) to help an individual grow and release their true potential the result an effective -1-2-1 trusting relationship.
We can look in the bible for many, many examples of trusting relationships e.g. Jesus and His disciples, Barnabas and Paul, Paul and Timothy, Naomi and Ruth, Elijah and Elisha, Moses and Joshua, Deborah and Barak, Elizabeth and Mary (the mother of Jesus), and many others. All are powerful examples of pairs and the God-inspired actions they took to trust and help each other develop.
To conclude let’s look at nature on how to care for one another to build and establish trust.
The story of plants & people
Plants grow best when we pay attention to them. That means watering, touching them, putting them in places where they will receive good light. They need people around them to notice if they are drooping at the edges or looking particularly happy in the sunlight.
The more attention a plant receives, the better it will grow.
We need to be noticed in the same way. If we notice a church member, colleague, family member or friend is drooping, perhaps we can pay some special attention to him or her. All of us need someone to care about how we are and to truly listen to us.
We can share and double someone’s happiness by noticing the small things that are troubling people. We help the people around us to grow by listening to their droopy edges as well as their bright days. People need this as much as plants need light and water”.
The moral of the story is if you don’t take time to Examine expectations, Explore opportunities, Expand personal growth and Empower nothing will be achieved, example:
Moses and Joshua. Moses demonstrated the wisdom of a leader in being a mentor and trusting in Joshua by deciding to delegate an important task (Exodus 17:9).
He placed one of his soldiers, Joshua, in command of a battle with the Amalekites over a water dispute. In making this decision, Moses demonstrated trust in Joshua’s gifts and leadership potential. He opened the way for their ongoing teamwork. Lesson for us all is to simply look at everything from God’s perspective, drop our own thoughts, attitudes and beliefs about others, put yourself in their position and ask “how can I help this person to GROW”?
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