THE WISE & UNWISE LEADER!        GP 263   8/73

         1. A good executive is not a boss!--He is a servant! Jesus wasn't just trying to teach His disciples humility when He said, "He who is greatest among you must be servant of all!" A good executive simply is not a dictator! He must call his people in & talk to them & find out what they think & go a great deal by what they say. If he sees their ideas are good, all he has to do is say, "OK!"
         2. A good executive is really a servant! He listens to his employees! When the top people don't even communicate with their co-workers, then of course they don't understand the problems of those under them.
         3. That is the attitude you should take toward your own co-workers: You need to listen to them! Leaders do have the responsibility to respond & to make the final decision, but being a good executive does not mean that you are the only one who has all the ideas & does all the thinking & all the consulting just within yourself, & then make all the decisions. Being a good executive means you assemble your people & share & listen to others.
         4. They probably know more about it than you do! Any good secretary knows more about her boss' business than he does, & she should! Because he shouldn't have to be bothered with all those things & he needs to listen to her! My secretary makes many suggestions on what needs to be done & what has to be done & often suggests how she thinks it ought to be done: Many of the initial suggestions come from her.
         5. I, being the executive, the final decision-maker, have to decide between these choices she presents to me. She presents her case for each alternative & she explains why she thinks it ought to be done. She's like a lawyer & I'm the judge & I have to make the final decisions as to whether she's right or not. The vast majority of the time I take her suggestions, because I know she knows what she's talking about. She's more familiar with the extent of the work, the urgency of it & the need for it, so I usually take her suggestions.
         6. So when it comes to things that are practical, the leaders ought to listen to their helpers! When it comes to the inspirational, you're supposed to be good, or you shouldn't be the leader! But when it comes to the practical, they probably know more about it than you do! (Read Acts 6:1-4.) Once you have made the decision, okayed your workers' suggestions, accepted them, approved what they have to do or want to do, you should then agree together to do it.
         7. I'm only like a judge, except for the things I get straight from the Lord. I'm either God's servant or your servant or I'm both & I really only do what you & He tell me to do! Once you have gone down & given approval or okayed a project, you need to leave your co-workers alone & let them carry it out the way they think best, just checking it to see they don't make any serious mistakes & to see they are producing, & then okaying the finished product.
         8. Any officer, any general who doesn't listen to his officers & doesn't pay any attention to his men, is going to be in trouble! Every good king is surrounded by many counsellors who tell him what to do! Did you know that even God works that way?--He calls in His chief counsellors & spirits & Angels & asks them, "What do you think we should do about this?" He listens to their different plans & suggestions & then He has the Godly wisdom to know who is right & to make the choice! If you don't believe it, read Genesis 1:26; 1 Kings 22:19-22; Job 1:6-12 etc.!
         9. My Lord, if God Himself won't do all the thinking for us & expects us to do some for ourselves, then who are we to try to make all the decisions, do all the thinking, give all the orders & carry them all out besides? We're really getting to the stage where we're beginning to be a real government, a New Nation, a Kingdom & a business--God's business--& it's got to be done right!
         10. Even in the early days, I never made a decision without calling all the leaders in & giving them the alternatives & asking them what they thought about it. I would have some ideas & suggestions & I would come to them for final approval! And when they had ideas they got from the Lord, they'd come to me for approval.
         11. You just can't operate alone!--This isolation of leadership can go to the extreme! Now for matters of security, yes: Leaders should be well insulated & protected from the mob & particularly from outsiders, from all but their very top leaders. But when it comes to getting the job done & the work done, if those top leaders don't learn how to assemble their staffs together & let them do the talking while the leaders merely guide the conversation, then they're going to have trouble!
         12. That's really the job of the executive: He's merely the guy who is supposed to keep things moving, the power that just must keep pushing.--But he should let his people do the work, recommend the work, initiate the work & by all means carry out the work!
         13. It's only a novice, a new baby or junior executive, the brand-new, not-yet-dry-behind-the-ears executive, who tries to run everything & boss everything & push everybody around & tell everybody what to do! That's been the problem we've had with some of our top leaders: They've never been executives before & never had such responsibilities before & they don't know how to handle it & don't know what to do.
         14. They're embarrassed & don't know what to do or how to do it! So they sit on their thrones giving out dictums & giving orders about things they don't really know much about. So they try to pretend they know what they're doing, & it's a very foolish king or executive or president or boss of any kind who works that way!
         15. Because a wise smart king, when he wants to get a day's work done, calls in his counsellors & his wise men & he listens to them, has them talk. Then he makes the choice as to whose advice is best. So then who does he appoint to carry out that job?--One of the other guys who had another plan?--Of course not!--He gives the job to the guy whose idea it was & who had the burden for it!
         16. Now you take the U.S. Government for example: It's usually the members of the legislative branch of the government, the individual members who initiate bills. But until the bills are approved by the whole body & the leading executive of the country, they don't become laws.--It has to have first of all the approval of counsellors, which in that case are other members of that particular body, & get their majority vote. Which means that the majority of the king's counsellors must agree on a certain plan or procedure before it's carried any further.
         17. Whether they be Cabinet Members or the Parliament or the Senate, they are a legislative body of counsellors to whom a proposal is presented in the form of an initial legislation or a bill. The majority of them have to agree on it before they even present it to the top executive of the country! They are really the ones who suggest it & it is usually their idea. They are the ones who want to do it & carry it out.
         18. The King, Queen, President, Prime Minister, whoever he may be, the Chief Executive is not too much more than merely a rubber stamp who stamps his okay on it! Of course, the man with the rubber stamp or royal seal in his hand wields quite a weapon of power, because it is up to him to make the final choice. He can also initiate legislation, but it must have their approval!
         19. But an executive who insists on making decisions on his own without consulting with his counsellors can get the whole country, if not the whole World, in a whole damn mess!--And the same is true of us: If I were to go ahead & make all decisions from the top, initiate all the rules & make all the choices & have all the ideas & try to run everything from here without any consultation with anybody whatsoever, either God or man, then I would be the biggest fool in our whole Nation!
         20. So are the executives in any Home who try to run their Home that way!--They are the biggest fools in the Home if they try to run their Home without consultation, without letting the people speak & their workers make suggestions & their counsellors present ideas! It is best for the chief executive to simply pump out the material: The counsel, the suggestions, the discussion--to pump it out of his people. I believe in people power!
         21. Any smart executive is going to pump people power!--He is neither going to try to be the pump, nor the water, nor the bucket! He's merely going to be the guiding hand that takes hold of the handle & grabs the bull by the tail & pumps!--I'll tell you, you'll get action then! Let the people's well, the repository of God's rain, provide the water! Let the pump, his counsellors, bring it to him & then let his spouts guide it into his buckets & not try to run everything himself!
         22. All the pumper does is just keep the pump in motion, that's all! The Council pump then provides the vacuum, as the channel of counsellors, the people's representative, opens itself for suggestions. The Council Pump consists of his counsellors, his cabinet, his committee, of whatever it is & the suggestions or the water, is provided by the earth itself, the people from the well holding God's rain!--Amen?
         23. The council pump merely channels it up to where the pumper can see it & decide which bucket it ought to flow into.--That's all he does!
         24. The executive is merely a hand: He is merely the motor which keeps things moving! He keeps the pump handle (the top Council) moving, which keeps the pump (the Dept. Council) moving, which keeps the water (God's rain of inspiration, ideas & suggestions) moving, which keeps the spouts (the individual Dept. heads) moving the water into the buckets of each worker who takes it to the people! Pump people power! The executive hand is merely the power who helps to pump out the people power!
         25. You, the executive motor, are only the instrument through which God works to turn the pump. Your cabinet or counsellors in turn provide a vacuum or suction which draws up the water through pipes of communication from below from the well (the repository of truth, the minds of your workers) out of the Earth, the people!
         26. You are not God! You do not cause it to rain! God sends the rain! God originates the water & God Himself even gets that water from the Earth, draws it up into Heaven to refine it & purify it & distil it & sends it back in the form of rain!
         27. It is not the King who always catches the rain! It is usually the Earth, the people, who receive the rain. Then they channel it to the places where it is needed & useful. It is only the King's job to see to it that the water is channelled both from the heavens & from the Earth in some form, whether by dams, reservoirs, channels, wells or pools, & to see to it that the water flows where it can be useful, that it flows into the right receptacles.
         28. He sees to it that the people provide the right receptacles & that the water is properly used. The King is only the guide. A chief executive or leader should only be a guide, who in turn is guided himself by God. But the one thing our chief executives & Shepherds seem to forget is that they are not only to be guided by God, like some little god themselves or a dictator, but that they are also to be largely guided by the people!
         29. Let me shock you: People talk about theocracy, government by God alone; absolute monarchy, government by king alone; & then there is autocracy, government only by the rich aristocracy or nobility or the rich; or democracy, government by the people.
         30. Now let me shock you: I don't believe in any one of those alone & neither does God! The fact of the matter is that God uses all of them working together & if any one of them get total & absolute control, things will go to hell! If even any two of them get total control as opposed to the rest & overrule the others, you have a hell of a mess! If you get any one or two or three branches of any government, pitting them against the other branches of government instead of working together, you're bound to have trouble.
         31. If the brain of the head refuses to listen to God or the hand refuses to listen to the head or the handle refuses to respond to the hand or the handle refuses to work with the pump or the pump refuses to react to the handle or pump the water or the earth refuses to give it & yield her store or the rain refuses to fall & the well runs dry or the buckets refuse to receive it, you're going to have a famine for water & the Word of Life!
         32. The people are going to go hungry & starve & that kingdom will die because of a lack of cooperation between its heads of government & between its government & the people!
         33. Because it works both ways: The government must cooperate with the people & the people must cooperate with the government. The king must listen to God & the king must listen to the people, who are also inspired by God! The king must listen to his counsellors & they must listen to the people & the people must listen to the counsellors.
         34. When everybody has heard what everybody has to say, they should then all agree together on a decision as to what to do. No one should have all the say or no two or three should have all the say & nobody should be a total absolute monarch or dictator, refusing to listen to anybody else.--Not even God does this!
         35. God not only listens to his Heavenly counsellors, Spirits & Angels, but don't forget, He even listens to us & does what we ask Him to do! But some of our leaders seem to think themselves superior even to God & that they don't have to listen to either their counsellors or their people.
         36. But a tyrannical spirit makes a leader like the Devil, the first would-be dictator, who didn't want to listen to either God or the other angelic forces! Obviously the majority of them were opposed to his rebellion, for when he leaves Heaven at the start of the Tribulation he'll only take one-third of them with him!
         37. The Devil, having refused to listen to either God or the majority of the Angels either one, what does he do? Does he then yield & give up & say, "So sorry! I was wrong." No, he goes insane & he screams that he alone has the power to do as he pleases!
         38. He rebels against all governments & all peoples & becomes the Devil, Satan, the wager of wars upon the World & all peoples & all governments and even God! He is the rebel of all rebels, the terrorist of all terrorists, the backslider of all backsliders, the delinquent of all delinquents and the criminal of all criminals and the worst monster of all ages!
         39. He declares his independence from all righteous rule & people & goes about doing his dirty work amongst the whole universe as a dandy bad example of what not to be & what not to do! So we have hell on Earth & even some hell in the heavenlies at present in the Spirit World, until God throws him out completely & all his devils, in the coming Tribulation & Wrath of God after the Rapture.
         40. Is that you & is that where you're going to wind up--with the Devil & his crowd--because you refused to listen to anybody, whether God or government or peoples? If you even reject the counsel of any one of these branches of God's government--whether it be God or the king or the Councils, Bishops, Shepherds or people--if you totally & inconsiderately reject the counsel of any one of these & insist on your own way alone, you're going to be in trouble!
         41. Even if the majority refuses to listen to the minority, the majority will be in trouble! Every government has to heed the voice of its minority as well, because to have a successful kingdom, you must not only try to keep the majority happy, but you must also try to please the minority & keep them happy too, as much as possible.
         42. In other words, you must try to keep everybody happy, because everybody has a right to be happy & to have his needs met & to do the work he likes to do & wants to do if he's in the Will of God & competent & qualified.
         43. So we all need to work together, we need to listen to each other, counsel together, agree together, decide together & then work it out together. If we're going to be an effective body, every member must work together with all the other members--not just one, not just a few, not even the majority, but with all working together as a body, which Christ described as His Body, the Church & with Himself as the Head.
         44. We cannot even say we have no need of one little member! You even need every fingernail, every cell, as well as every organ & every limb, & you need to all work together for the glory of God!
         45. So please, for God's sake, you leaders listen to your people, as well as to the Lord & to me, & let's try to do what we all think is best together & let no member try to declare himself so independent that he has no need of another member!
         46. For every member is needed & everybody is important, from the lowliest to the mightiest, from the most insignificant to the most seemingly important, from the most obscure to the most obvious, behind the scenes in the kitchen or on a throne behind an executive desk, everyone has his job, everyone is needed & all must work together in unity & harmony & cooperation with agreement.
         47. So again we say unto you: Get it together! For God's sake & your sake, let's get it together!--Talk together, discuss together, counsel together, agree together, decide together, love together, go together, do together, bear together, care together, grow together, work together & enjoy the fruits of our labours together!
         48. God bless you & keep you together--even when you're apart! Never get so far apart you can't stay together in spirit. The only way we're going to win this war is to fight it together & not against each other, but together with each other against the Enemy!
         49. Let's win it together so we can shout the victory together & greet God together in the end! Hallelujah? Praise God! ILY! Let's get it together & keep it together & always together in all ways with all of us--always together! Amen?--Then & only then will you be a wise leader & a good executive!


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family