FEBRUARY 23 • TRUE LEADERSHIP
Responsibility & Authority
God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 1 Timothy 1:7
Cake and ice cream. Macaroni and cheese. Peanut butter and jelly. Beanie and Cecil (?). Great things that go together. Responsibility and authority are in the same league. Too many times in my early career I was given responsibility without the needed authority to carry out the task. Which is fine when you’re learning. You have to go to leadership to get the necessary authority to accomplish the responsibilities you have been given.
Unfortunately, many times leadership holds on to the authority part after you have grown in your position and you don’t have the authority you need to accomplish. Not only will this slow down organizational growth, it can put too much power in one person’s hands and cause a serious roadblock to success. There must be a healthy balance between the two.
If you’re on the receiving side of this, you need to lead up and help your leadership release the needed authority to you. If you’re a leader on the giving side holding back authority (when your new leader has proven their capability and trustworthiness), you need to devise a time-line for releasing that authority. Write up the plan — or better yet — have the new leader write up what authority they need and work with them to define and release the authority to them. They may not know fully so work with them.
It’s best to do this when you give them their new leadership position. Map out the stages and time-line of authority and create milestones for releasing the authority. You can go as fast or as slow as needed to maintain both efficiency and ability in the new leader.
Remember — if you’re training someone, give the plan vision so your new leader can see what it takes and how long it takes. If you’re the new leader, show competency and responsibility with your authority so your leadership can trust you because of your discipline and conscientiousness. If you are not communicating, this can take much longer than it should. Also, when bringing in a new leader — especially someone with a track record elsewhere — work methodically but carefully in releasing authority — otherwise you may not be on the same page and suffer a hefty loss early on.
Pray: Lord, teach me responsibility that I may get the authority I need.
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