Tag: Christian Leadership

Monday kicked off Week 40 of 2014. This week’s NIV Leadership Bible focuses on the leadership skill of Empowerment. Empowering leaders share information, rewards, and power with team members, so they can take initiative and make decisions to solve problems—improving service and performance.

In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells his disciples they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem (where they are), in all Judea and Samaria (close to home), and to the ends of the earth. He starts by informing them, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” In this passage, Jesus demonstrates two keys to effective empowerment:

1. Jesus didn’t promise his disciples authority or influence—attributes they regularly argued about. Instead, he offered them “power,” or the resource they needed to do the job He gave them.
2. It’s important to note that Jesus had spent three years educating his disciples to lead the church. Then, he supplied what they needed to accomplish the task he gave them.

Leaders who empower others too early set up their followers for failure. On the other hand, leaders who fail to empower capable people create frustration.

To learn more about empowerment from the Bible, click here.

Tomorrow marks week 39 of 2014, and the NIV Leadership Bible focuses the week’s devotions on the leadership skill of “double-loop learning.” This leadership theory for individuals and organizations was coined by Chris Argyris—an American business theorist, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, and Thought Leader in the field of Organization Development.

Argyris used different terms for solving immediate problems (“single-loop learning”) and addressing root causes of problems (“double-loop learning”). He observes, “Many people define learning too narrowly as mere ‘problem solving,’ so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment. Solving problems is important, but if learning is to persist, managers and employees must look inward. They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization’s problems, and then change how they act. In particular, they must learn how the very way they go about defining and solving problems can be a source of problems in its own right.”

Let’s see what we can learn from the example of the Apostle Peter and how Jesus helped him with “Double-Loop Learning.”

Click here for more.