Life truly is the greatest teacher, especially as we reflect both on faith and leadership. Lately, two very different sources have caused me to remember something important about leadership, John Wesley and knee surgeries. John Wesley is credited with saying the following: ‘work like everything depends on you, pray like everything depends on God.’ I think this is one of Wesley’s more brilliant statements and an important thing to consider as we reflect on leadership, especially Christian leadership.
In 2017, I had three knee surgeries. The surgeries were due to a genetic condition and the three surgeries on the two knees were to repair some damage and to completely reconstruct the knees. The reconstruction was anything but minor with long and continued recovery with pain, restrictions and a lot of work. It has been an interesting journey with many ups and downs, moments of success and failure. I have been blessed because for the most part, I have exceed normal outcomes and timelines in my recovery. I was once asked by someone why I thought that was the case. Of course, there are many factors at play including age, body, surgeon, etc. That aside, I noted that the the biggest influence in progress, recovery and success for me boiled down to three things. Those three things: working hard, praying harder, and listening to the experts. Its that simple What strikes me as I reflect on my response to this question is that this is also true for leadership. To be an effective leader can be filtered down to these same three principles. Work hard, pray harder and trust the experts.
Its always fascinating to see the various places where life and leadership lessons come from. For me, over the past year, it has been John Wesley and three knee surgeries. As leaders we must work like everything depends on us and pray like everything depends on God. As leaders we must work hard, pray harder and learn from and trust the experts around us.