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| Nancy Bates Photography |
Learn to be a great leader through spotting.
spotting
The idea of spotting is simply that there are too many creative ideas in the world to be bound within the single human individual. Although your narcissist self may attempt to want to be the most creative, the most ingenious, the most entrepreneurial, the truth is that there will always be someone else who is better at what you do than you.
oopsidily
We have this word in our house we call: oopsidilly!
It's basically the word we use for an accident that happens in our house (like a glass of spilled milk) or (when someone has a pee accident). It's helpful to know the difference between sin and an accident. Direct disobedience (like talking back or hitting a brother after we tell someone not to) is an act of rebellion and treated with discipline. Moments of oopsidilly accidents are not sin and treated with loving kindness and compassionate parenting.
Now here's where I need to be honest. The word oopsidily is original to our house. The idea of accident vs. disobedience is not. Nancy and I were living in Seattle when we heard a pastor preach on this idea and ever since it's changed how we parent our kids.
I don't think I could have come up with this idea on my own; or at least it would have taken a while. I simply became a great spotter, and now I'm a better parent.
spotting and leadership
1. Spotting - our goal as leaders is to spot gifts we see in people.
We are constantly to be looking for the gifts people are naturally good at. We are to not only learn from our people when we see them being generous, kind, giving, trustworthy, we are to find a way to encourage them in their gifts.
2. Enabling - when we spot those gifts we are to enable those leaders.
Gifts are enabled as we choose to put people into places of leadership which match their gifts. There are two perspectives here. One says: put people into an out of the box experiences and make them learn within a new environment. Well that's great until your sound guy is called up to play piano on stage. The other says match the gifted person to the right fit and let them become enabled in their position. This offers a much more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
3. Flourishing - the mission of enabling leaders causes a whole group of people to flourish.
When a person knows their place, uses their gifts in their place, the group finds a harmony and clockwork-ness. It's not science and it's not perfect, but there's something about people finding stride where they serve that allows for unity. The people know their place, the community flourishes as a result.
a note about giftedness vs. character
We need to be careful when we use the word giftedness. In some circles (maybe you know some examples of this?) giftedness trumps calling. Unhealthy leaders are allows to remain in positions of authority because they are a "gifted" communicator, worship leader, or people person. There is no substitute for great character, and we can never allow our staff appointments, volunteer team leaders to be chosen by a weighted vision of gifting absent of character.
"Whenever a staff member's giftedness and platform surpass their character, it eventually creates disillusionment and cynicism among those they work with. It also tends to create festering jealousies and division among the rest of the staff, especially among those who become frustrated and disheartened by all the success and public praise they see heaped on someone they know is actually a jerk behind the scenes." Sticky Teams
Where are you gifted? How is your character being changed to become stronger than your gifting? Where do you need to change?
barriers to being a good spotter
As a largely ethnocentric culture there are many barriers to spotting:
1. Pride - thinking you always have to be the best at something.
2. Sin - broken lens due to past sin hampers our ability to spot well.
3. Prejudice - we think a person or culture is lower than us or insignificant, and therefore not worthy of being spotted.
4. Lazy - we just forget to take the time to spot something new, beautiful, worth noticing.
Here's a question: What is your barrier to being a good spotter?
AB.
AB.
*written by Abraham Bates - photos by Nancy Bates Photography - Copyright AbrahamBates.com
