59 - The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life #9: A Man Seeks Out Appropriate Authority

Mar 17

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.

For a man to lead any organization, family, mission, or task, he needs to trust what he knows. In addition, he needs to be aware of what he doesn’t know so that he can grow into becoming all he is created to be.

This man seeks out the abilities of others so that he can accomplish his responsibilities.

No one knows everything, and therefore, we all need others’ abilities.

Four Categories of Practicing Appropriate Authority:

Every man is a leader if he loves someone, and/or has a goal or mission in life. Therefore, he has authority, which is more about a responsibility than a form of power.
A leader definitely needs certain skills to accomplish his responsibilities; just as important, a leader needs to be a competent human being.
A leader truly needs to know what he doesn’t do well and know his limitations, so that he can reach out to others who have the abilities he needs in order to fulfill his responsibilities.
A leader needs to be responsible with the power that is inherent in leadership.

The power of delegation.
The power of truth-telling.
The power of delivering consequences.

Authority comes from the word author, which means that you have been given the ability and responsibility to communicate your assigned “mission.”

There are two kinds of authority

Healthy authority is invitational. It grows trust and confidence in the “followers” because they know two things about their leader. They believe he desires their good or benefit, and they know that he is as much a servant of the “mission” as they themselves are. For example, the president of the United States’ mission is to serve the Constitution. The truest leader knows that he is serving God as the top authority. Healthy authority invites the full participation of heart, mind, and abilities of a person.
Unhealthy authority is subordinating. It is about exercising power over someone. It is inherently threatening because it focuses on “lock-step” obedience even more than the development of a team that can accomplish a mission. Unhealthy authority focuses on “obedient” performance over the full of investment of a person’s presence of heart, mind, and abilities. Heart doesn’t matter too much in an unhealthy authority system, only abilities.

In a healthy system, a “follower” can:

Ask questions
Admit mistakes for learning purposes
Express needs related to the “mission”
Offer ideas and feedback to the healthy authority

In an unhealthy system, a “follower”

Fears asking questions
Tends to hide mistakes or blame others
Does not communicate needs
Does not offer feedback to the leader

A healthy leader invites others to join the “mission” with their full personhood—heart, mind, and abilities by:

Inviting others into the “mission”
Engendering trust
Offering resources that benefit the “follower”
Increasing skills
Communicating the personal “pay off” for the “follower”
Explaining the action plan

A healthy leader is foundationally a competent human being. They look for the abilities of those people they will give appropriate authority to. Even more, though, they look for competent human beings who have aptitude to learn the skills they need.

A competent human being has the following characteristics that engender trust in others:

Curiosity: they are willing to ask questions, learn, and wonder openly about “better” ways to accomplish the “mission.”
Courage: they are investing themselves with full-hearted participation; in short, this means that they are invested emotionally in the process of success and the results.
Compassion: they know the struggles that come with life’s realties, and they are capable of tolerating the struggles that others contend with.

These competent human beings have the characteristics that are often needed to develop a focus on the “mission” over the egotism. They develop a sense of esprit de corps, or an “all-for-one-and-one-for-all” attitude. If people trust each other’s personal investment and abilities, a great team can be developed.

Esprit de corps means a common spirit of companionship, care, and loyalty to a cause among the members who are participating in the task. Competent human beings who also have developed skills can do great things. Cooperation among the members increases favorable results more than competition among the members.

A leader needs to be responsible with the power that is inherent in leadership.

A leader needs to be willing and courageous enough to delegate:

A leader must assess who can do what he cannot do well. A leader is also in a position in which he needs to assign to someone else what he no longer is responsible to do. For example, a captain of an airplane has already been a co-captain and a navigator before he takes the captain’s position. As a captain, he needs to be able to work from his authority as he directs his co-pilot and navigator.

2. A leader needs to have the courage of being a truth-teller.

A leader is willing to assess the successes and failures of himself and others with whom he has authority. He has to be willing to name the mistakes of those around him that he depends on. He also needs to celebrate the successes of those who are serving the “mission.” Growth and improvement only occur through truth-telling.

3. A leader has to be willing to deliver consequences.

The human factor of making mistakes is inevitable. The leader must confront mistakes and needs for change. Sometimes the mistakes are about need for growth, and sometimes the mistakes are about a person reaching their own limits. Everyone has limits, and therefore, a leader must address them. A leader must be willing to remove people from the team if they cannot do the job, which can mean many things

A leader is responsible for being a healthy authority:

He continually takes the time to inspect what he expects.
He knows that he is not in control of all the results, but he is in charge of overseeing the processes of the mission.
He takes the time to evaluate the “followers’” needs and their results.
He makes his expectations clear and is willing to evaluate them.
He makes the job descriptions very clear so that each person knows their assignments and appropriate authority.
He is open to questions.
He affirms good effort and is willing to continually help others improve.

A healthy leader must be a competent human being because people want to follow leaders who are: