The Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl Champions!!!
I am a huge Kansas City Chiefs fan. I have been since 1988 when Christian Okoye was running people over as the “Nigerian Nightmare”. But to be Super Bowl Champions is simply an amazing experience even as a fan.
Throughout the last few weeks, in the trophy ceremony, and in the post-game interviews one thing has been glaringly obvious: everyone wanted this Super Bowl win for the Head Coach Andy Reid.
Andy Reid has been a great football coach for a couple of decades having only two losing seasons in his whole career, several playoff wins, and one trip to the Super Bowl where he came up short. But that isn’t why everyone wanted the win for him.
Being the coach for Kansas City since 2013, Reid has taken a proud, historic football franchise and restored a winning culture that has brought them to this pinnacle. But that isn’t why so many wanted this Super Bowl won for the one they affectionately call Big Red.
The reason players, coaches, the Hunt family, and countless people around the NFL wanted Super Bowl LIV to go to Andy Reid is because of the man he is and the generous leader he has been to so many people over the years.
You see, Coach Reid knew his goal was to build a Super Bowl-winning football team that would lift up the Lombardi trophy, but his focus wasn’t on the business and the X’s and O’s of the game. His focus was on people: building them up, caring for them, challenging them to be better, and loving them.
Can that be said about you in your ministry?
As spiritual leaders called by God and empowered with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we should be the front runners of leadership when it comes to loving people into greatness.
When I was starting out in ministry I was very black and white (for those who know me I am sure this is not a shocker). The men who mentored me in ministry were always quick to help me realize that people mostly live in the gray space, and I had to find a way to inspire and love people to move toward the white rather than embrace the black. In short, they would say, “you can’t drive anyone into greatness”.
I have learned this to be true. Whenever I ride someone, point out the mistakes they need to fix, remind them of their responsibility to God, church, and people, I beat them down into guilt and obligation rather than call them up.
As spiritual leaders, if we are relying on guilt, duty, responsibility, and obligation as our primary motivators in our ministries, then we need to re-evaluate ourselves. Whenever we operate out of these primary motivators we are using our positional leadership, which is a clear sign we are scraping the bottom of the barrel of our influence.
Instead, we should be brokers of hope and trust. Many pastors claim to spread hope but fail to garner trust. Others have the trust of their people, but use it to bludgeon them into submission. Great leaders balance both sides of this coin building trust and dispensing hope so those who follow them benefit from the greatness residing within the leader.
So, how do we work both sides of the coin balancing trust and hope the way Andy Reid has and be the leader that inspires the way he does?
Give Generously
Give yourself to others in a generous fashion. Whether you like it or not, as a leader you are always the point at the end of the spear. This means others will always ask more of you than you can possibly give. Over time, this pushes us to a crossroads where we have to make a choice:
- We build walls around ourselves and stop being generous for self-preservation, or
- we give and give to impact as many people as possible until we are completely depleted and we end up burned out, cynical, emotionally detached, or something worse.
Fortunately, there is a third option. Andy Stanley teaches a principle he has used in his ministry. Since he doesn’t want to stop being generous, and he also doesn’t want to fall into an unhealthy place as a leader, he has adopted the philosophy of “do for one what you wish you could do for everyone”. This may not seem like a fair way to do things, but as all our moms told us, life isn’t fair. It simply isn’t possible to be fair to everyone in the sense of treating them all the same. So, we shouldn’t allow our futile pursuit of fairness to keep us from being generous to others.
For one, who receives 10 minutes of your time where you hear their new idea, give them your feedback and encouragement, and then send them to go make it a reality, that may make their whole day and impact them in a lasting way.
Being generous can come in the form of time and finances, but challenge yourself to look past these two areas for creative ways to be generous. What can you leverage to give to those around you? Know your people well enough to know what gestures of generosity will make the most personal and meaningful impact in their lives.
Teach what you know to all who will listen.
Be Strategic
Once we abandon this idea of being fair and open our eyes to be personal in our generosity, the door of opportunities opens up wide. If you have determined you are going to be generous and do for one what you wish you could do for everyone, then you will start to see the personal needs, wants, and desires of your followers.
I once had an instance where one of my followers really wanted some time with me, but because of the nature of our structure and schedule, there was no way for us to get together. He had made it known to someone on the staff that he really wished he could pick my brain about a particular topic. Knowing that I tried to be generous with my time, this staffer came to me and let me know of this follower’s desire. I jumped at the chance to sit down with this person.
I arranged to take him to lunch and while we were eating, I asked him if he had any ideas that he felt could contribute to our overall mission. His face lit up and he got excited as he unrolled his thoughts and ideas and we brainstormed together for an hour about it might work.
My relationship with that individual changed dramatically after that. He felt as though he had been heard and that I wasn’t a distant leader. It also validated him to know that just because I didn’t have a lot of time to give to him on a regular basis, he was still important and valuable as an individual.
Being strategic in your generosity allows you to be intentional and increase the impact of your giving. This is something that isn’t possible if you are focused on being fair to everyone.
Conclusion
Leadership is challenging in so many ways and being a ministry leader increases this challenge because everyone expects you to have time for them. The more people you serve the more difficult it becomes to meet that expectation, and the harder it is to balance building trust and brokering hope. Your legacy, though, lies in your ability to do both things well.
We balance this building trust and giving hope by generously giving what we have in strategic ways that make the most individual impact. When we seek to serve individuals instead of masses, we leave a trail of lives that are built up from a very personal perspective. This is how we leave a legacy like the one Andy Reid has left, where his trust and hope have inspired a whole host of people willing to work to ensure all the best things come to him.