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Difficulties
of Leaders
Leadership
Harry Truman once commented
on the importance of polls to leadership
with the following insight: “I wonder
how far Moses would have gone if he’d taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus
Christ have preached if he’d taken a poll in
Leadership
A bumper sticker reads:
“Don’t follow me. I’m lost too.” Motion does not always mean purpose. Be very
careful if you follow the crowd
for they may not know where they are going. ──
Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical Preaching》
During World War II
Winston Churchill was forced to make a painful choice. The British secret
service had broken the Nazi code and informed Churchill that the Germans were
going to bomb Coventry. He had two alternatives: (1) evacuate the citizens and
save hundreds of lives at the expense of indicating to the Germans that the
code was broken; or (2) take no action
which would kill hundreds but keep the
information flowing and possibly same many more lives. Churchill had to choose
and followed the second course.── Klyne
Snodgrass
Between Two Truths - Living with Biblical Tensions
1990
Zondervan Publishing House
p. 179.
In typical fashion
when
George Allen moved to Washington
D.C.
as head coach of the Redskins
he
promised the nation's capital the moon. He told them it would be just a few
seasons before he would develop the Redskins into a championship football team.
He promised them the Super Bowl by the second season. The team had a brilliant
preseason that first year. Then
early in the regular season
they won several
amazing victories. It appeared the Redskins were to be lifted from their common
role of loser to the uncommon role of winner. As time passed
however
the
inevitable occurred. They began to lose and lose and lose. The blame fell
at
least in part
not on Coach George Allen
but on a quarterback named Sonny
Jurgenson
in my opinion one of the most gifted and effective quarterbacks to
ever play the game. Jurgenson possesses a quality I deeply admire: personal
security. It seems as though no one can intimidate Sonny Jurgenson.
One day after another
defeat
Sonny was getting ready to take a shower and go home. A sportswriter
leaned over to him in the locker room and said
"Say
Sonny
be honest
now. Don't all these off-the-wall remarks we write and all this public flack
disturb you? Doesn't it make you want to quit when people throw things at you
from the stands and when you get those dirty letters?"
Sonny just leaned back
gave a big
toothless grin
and sighed
"No
not really
I don't want to
quit. I've been in this game long enough to know that every quarterback
every
week of the season
spends his time either in the penthouse or in the
outhouse."
Sonny's comment points out
an important fact. It is true that if you are a leader
you spend your time
either on the top or on the bottom. You seldom know what it's like to be in
between. You are either the hero or the villain. You are respected or you are
virtually hated. People in leadership must live on the yo-yo of public opinion
under the gun of verbal jabs as well as on the crest of great admiration. Being
"in the outhouse" is a lot more difficult than those choice times
"in the penthouse." It's when we are under verbal attack of the
intimidating public that we show our colors.
I have discovered
after a
number of years in the ministry
that this is true even in the spiritual realm.
You commit yourself to a life of faith
you declare before God and man that you
are going to walk with Him regardless
and suddenly
it happens! The enemy
turns every gun he can upon you to blast you out of the saddle
to make you
finish your season in defeat
to have you think that it's really not worth it
after all.── Charles Swindoll
Hand
Me Another Brick.
As a train was about to
leave a large railroad station
the conductor began to take tickets. Looking at
the ticket of the first passenger he remarked
"Friend
I think you're on
the wrong train!" "But
" replied the man
"the ticket agent
told me this was my train." After a little discussion
the conductor
decided to check with the ticket agent. Before long
it became clear that the
conductor was on the wrong train! When the leader is lost
how can the
followers be going on the right track?── Source
Unknown.
Franklin Roosevelt had to
work hard to persuade Harry Truman to be his running mate in the 1944
presidential election. Truman wanted to go to the Senate
but incumbent
vice-president Henry Wallace was unpopular with many Democratic leaders. So
Truman was approached
and accepted the job with extreme reluctance. On April
12
1945 he was summoned to the White House. There he was shown into Eleanor
Roosevelt's sitting room
where she told him that President Roosevelt was dead.
After a moment of stunned silence Truman asked her
"Is there anything I
can do for you?"
She shook her head.
"Is there anything we can do for you?" she said. "For you're the
one in trouble now." ── Today
in the Word
April 27
1992.
As Vice President
Richard
Nixon came upon President Eisenhower one day signing an immense stack of mail
in his office. Mr. Nixon watched quietly for a moment and then asked the
General how
with all that mail
he ever found time to think about the big
problems of the country.
Ike replied: "Dick
I
really haven't spent that much time on these letters. In fact
in some
instances they probably don't even say exactly what I want them to. But you've
got to learn that
if you get bogged down in all the fine print and little
detail you'll never get anything accomplished as President.── Bits & Pieces
April 30
1992.
Caution to newly promoted
executives -- remember what the mamma whale told the baby whale: "When you
get to the top and start letting off steam
that's the time you're most apt to
be harpooned." ── Bits
& Pieces
April 30
1992.
A football coach gave this
advice on how to deal with failures. "When you're about to be run out of
town
get out in front and make it look like you're heading a
parade." ── Bits & Pieces
April
30
1992.
When a general gets too
far ahead of his troops
he's often mistaken for the enemy.── Source Unknown.
When my father's company
hired a consultant to improve efficiency
he immediately called a meeting of
all shop personnel. In stressing the importance of following a set plan of
engineering procedures
he gave this analogy: "You are on the Titanic
and
it's sinking. You find yourself on a lifeboat. It's dark and hazy. Which
direction would you row? Now
you're in the same situation
but you have the ship's
navigator with you. Which way would you row? You'd row the way the navigator
told you to
right?"
In the crowd there
were murmurs of agreement until one man in the back piped up. "Well
I
don't know
" he said. "He already hit one iceberg!" ── Sarah Jo Plucker
in Reader's Digest.
It is small wonder where
the shepherds hesitate and stumble
that the sheep draw back affrighted. ── Scott Nearing.
The captain of a
floundering ship does little good by criticizing the crew to the passengers.── Source Unknown.
※ 在未領導人之前，須先領導自己，斷絕一切惡習，控制自己的脾氣，在任何困難危機中，保持從主來的平穩安靜。―― Oswald Sanders
Leadership
The person who can’t lead
and won’t follow makes a dandy roadblock. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
The trouble with being a
leader today is that you can't be sure whether people are following you or
chasing you. ── Bits & Pieces
February 4
1993
p. 8.
When in danger or in
doubt
run in circles
scream and shout. When in charge
ponder. When in
trouble
delegate. When in doubt
mumble. ── James H.
Boren.
General John Galvin
Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and Commander-in-Chief of U.S. European
Command
was asked what was it like to be in charge of so many and various forces.
His reply: "I often feel like the director of a cemetery. I have a lot of
people under me
but nobody listens."── Source
Unknown.
You can judge leaders by
the size of the problems they tackle-- people nearly always pick a problem
their own size
and ignore or leave to others the bigger or smaller ones. ── Anthony Jay
Bits and Pieces
September
1989.