Discerning the People You Lead
Fred Smith, Sr.
IF THE LORD HAS BLESSED YOU with the gift of discernment, use it in your leadership. Our gifts are our uniqueness, and our greatest spiritual strength is always in the uniqueness of who we are. You reach integrity by being who you are in all the fullness God intended. The false self is the person whom you try to imitate. The most grateful compliment we can pay our Creator is to fulfill and optimize our uniqueness. How can we pray, asking God to make us someone we aren't or to do something we are not gifted to do? Our leading should be according to who we are. I have known many excellent leaders who were not given the gift of discernment. They could not read people. They could read figures. They excelled in science, engineering, mathematics, and administration. They depended on management skills, behavioral research, organizational charts, methods, and the types of learned skills taught in business school. Those blessed with discernment, however, develop sensitivity, empathy, and intuition. I am one of these types, having used discernment for many years both in manufacturing (twenty-five hundred employees) and in ministry (chairman of several national ministries). I was fortunate in my career to have both Ray Stedman, pastor of Peninsula Bible Church, and Baxter Ball, vice-president of Mobil, verify my discernment and intuition. They encouraged me to use these in my leadership. Early on, my mentor Maxey Jarman emphasized utilizing strength and buttressing weakness. I had natural leadership gifts and a strong desire to lead but little training in the usual skills. A word about my background may be helpful to you: My father was pastor of a small blue-collar church. I never heard the word business mentioned in my home. After graduating ...
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