The Most Important Leadership Decision

Everyone knows that leaders must make decisions. Some decisions are easy to make; others much more difficult with much higher stakes. Some decisions will affect more than others your ability to lead and have influence. Some decisions will be financial; others will be decisions about personnel and staffing; still others will be directional or visionary decisions. But there is one decision that every effective individual must be willing to make. The one decision you cannot ignore is the decision to take 100% responsibility for your life and leadership. Unless you are willing to make this decision, no other decision will matter in your life! Unfortunately, we have been accustomed and trained to blame other sources for the parts of our lives that we don’t like. When we don’t succeed, we like to find some reason or excuse as to why it didn’t work out. NCAA football coach Lou Holtz was so right when he said: “The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.” We blame the economy or lack of the right personnel. We blame our spouse, the weather, our lack of money or resources–anything or anyone we can think of on which to pin the blame. We never really want to admit where the real problem lies–within ourselves.

It is time that you stop looking outside of yourself for the answers to successfully leading and start realizing that the gift you have to lead has been given to you by God and it is your responsibility to maximize that gift and reach your potential. No one else can do it for you! If it is going to happen then it will happen only when you make the decision to stop blaming your past, your background, your lack of training, or any other source for your lack of effectiveness and success as a leader. The Apostle Paul was very direct in his exhortation to his young ministry protégée Timothy when he told him, “Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.” The leadership mentality that Paul possessed was giving a great leadership principle to this young leader who had great opportunity lying in front of him: God has given you the gift, but it is your responsibility to use your gift to its fullest potential!

That is a liberating moment for each of us because you have now released every excuse as to why you have not succeeded to this point. You have realized that you have complete control over using what God has given to you for your full potential. It releases you to be who you are in Christ and stop trying to be someone you are not. You can stop trying to emulate someone else’s results and realize that you are unique and special in the sight of God. No one else has the same DNA, genetic makeup, or the same set of abilities and gifts that you do. Ponder that for just a moment; you are made exactly as God wanted you to be made. He created the set of circumstances in which you were raised; He gave you the set of parents He wanted you to have; He knew when and where He wanted you to be born; there is absolutely nothing in your life that has happened arbitrarily or by accident! God has given you the uniqueness of your personality to fit into His overall purpose for your life. The Psalmist said it well when he wrote: “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfected; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” Because these abilities have been uniquely given and designed for us, it is completely up to us to use them successfully and become the person we were designed to be. To attempt to be anything else will bring fruitless failure into your life.

So take some time to evaluate who you are at this moment. What excuses have you offered as to why you are not at the point you should be in life? How do you need to change in your response to the people around you? Do you need to change the way you think about yourself and the life you are created to live? You are the only one who can honestly answer those questions, so let this be your wake-up call to the greatest moment in your life…the moment you finally accept full responsibility for who you are!

Dr. Mark Lantz, WHMN President