TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS
People need to stop telling or expecting people who are in leadership positions, but who fail to lead in dealing with issues, to “take the bull by the horns.” Why? Because many people, many of whom are quasi-leaders, have no idea what a "bull" (a problem or need), or its "horns" ( what needs to be handled in order to deal with it), looks like. It’s an exercise in frustration and futility to tell people to “take the bull by the horns” who have neither the intelligence, inclination. or ability to do it. Real leaders can recognize the "horns" of their responsibility and are ready and able to "take hold" of them effectively.
Individuals are broken in countless ways, families and churches fall apart, nations go into free-fall and Christianity largely loses its way where there is a lack of discerning and decisive, competent and courageous, proactive and persevering, leadership. America's national shortage of principled, powerful leadership has never been more critical or painfully obvious than it is now. To be clear, the title "father" or "pastor," or "coach" or "boss," or "general" or "president," doesn't make a leader. Character, behavior and measurable good results does. Men need to be examined, and examine themselves, as to whether or not they are truly leaders.
Napoleon said that one of the greatest crimes a man can commit is to assume a place of leadership for which he knows he is not qualified. Men should think this over very seriously before they get married and have a family or assume any position of leadership where they will impact the lives and futures of others. It's also wrong for a man in a leadership position to not strive to be the best leader that he can possibly be. The good news is that any man who is teachable can become an extraordinary and outstanding leader. To make this happen, there are books to read (beginning with the Bible), good examples to emulate, and wisdom to be had for the asking (James 1:5).
Men become leaders. They aren't born that way. Leadership is learned. One our our great generals said, "Give me anyone except a schizophrenic, and I'll turn him into a leader." A good man is driven to learn to lead by virtue of his integrity, his sense of responsibility, and his commitment to his duty as a father, a pastor, a statesman, a soldier or a supervisor, etc. "Leadership," James MacGregor Burns wrote, "is fired in the forge of ambition and opportunities, and arises out of great conflict." It is a lifetime learning process, developed on the mountaintops, in the valleys and in the everywhere-in-between of "desert," "wilderness" and "swamp" places in our life experience.
留言