No blind followers Part III

Good results come from training people to do their jobs.  Productive leaders need to understand how each  person or department contributes to the over all success of the program and  they find ways to empower workers to learn how to fulfill responsibilities.  Giving in to the temptation to do someone else's work for them, encourages our people to remain blind to their own obligations.  In our impatience to "get the job done right" or move the work along faster, we get short term rewards with long term consequences.

" 'We must be as coaches in a football game and not become the quarterbacks, to attempt to do directly what we have the responsibility to teach those under our charge to do.'  A dictatorship may be a shortcut to get immediate action, but the longer-lasting results come in painstaking and patient instruction and development by giving a man a responsibility and then letting him learn his duty and giving him the authority to act in his office and calling, according to his appointment.

"This is an objective of leadership which we sometimes fail to consider in our anxiety to promote certain programs. . .  The principle of stewardship is one in which we each have some clearly defined responsibility and a sameness of calling and concern for others, even as God holds us accountable to Him for our performance.  We may fail to let the principle of stewardship operate when we take over someone else's responsibility.  If we do, we not only prevent growth but we blur the lines of accountability.  The matter of our being willing to let another learn his duty involves our willingness to teach correct principles and then allow the individual enough room to apply and grow in his leadership.   (Lee, Harold B,. The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, Clyde J. Williams, Ed.,  Bookcraft, 1996. pg. 512)