Lead Without God ... You Must Be Kidding!

Sharon Haylock

Description

Lead without God You Must Be Kidding takes a practical, no-nonsense, but spiritually based approach to the business of honing ones leadership skills. The common denominator for all successful leaders is to understand that their experience, discipline, and wisdom come from God, and when they put their trust in God, He will show them how to chart their course as they navigate the murky, turbulent, and dangerous waters of management and leadership. Good leaders use Scripture as their true north and prayer as their personal time to communicate with God, to understand His will, and to recognize His voice above the clamor and clanging of all other loud and abrasive voices. The leader who has an inflated view of his or her management skills becomes puffed up with a vaunted view of his or her talents and will find out very quickly that this kind of arrogance has a limited life. Our heavenly Father is the only leader, and we must take our directions from Him. If we dont, we might have success, but it will be short-lived. Lead without God shows how to use the Word of God to demonstrate to other leaders the importance of listening to God while leading.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Inspiring Voices
• Date de parution: 03 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781462411207
• Langue: English

Extrait

Lead without God … You Must Be Kidding!
 
A TWIN POWER PRODUCTION
 
 
 
 
 
Sharon Haylock and Sheryl Wood
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2015 Sharon Haylock and Sheryl Wood.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
The persons represented in this story are fictitious and do not represent persons alive or dead. They are characters that the authors created to illustrate the lessons they have learned throughout their lives and careers under the divine tutelage of God. Hopefully, others will be inspired, as the authors have been, to let God always lead the way.
 
Inspiring Voices
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.inspiringvoices.com
1 [phone]
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
 
ISBN: 978-1-4624-1119-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4624-1120-7 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015905099
 
Inspiring Voices rev. date: 09/03/2015
Contents
Acknowledgments
 
Chapter 1 Twin Power
Chapter 2 Pruning the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Chapter 3 The Genesis
Chapter 4 Works in Progress
Chapter 5 Claudia’s Story
Chapter 6 Paula’s Story
Chapter 7 This Is Easy. Any Old Fool Can Do It
Chapter 8 Lead without God? You Must Be Kidding
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to acknowledge those who patiently and thoughtfully assisted us in crafting this story. Our siblings—Edna, Mike, and Nell—answered our last-minute call to do much-needed editing at extremely short notice. They also kept us honest in telling the story. Thank you to the entire clan of other siblings, spouses, children, nieces, and nephews who kept us in good humor and provided an endless source of inspiration when our muse waned.
We would be remiss to leave out our dear friends, who were always there when we needed them.
Above all, the highest praise goes to the Man above Himself. Sometimes, He is Papa; other times, He is Mama. But He is always available whenever we need Him.

CHAPTER 1

Twin Power
The dawn of a new day, new opportunities, and new insights , Claudia thought as she switched lanes on the highway while making her way to La Guardia Airport.
She had learned how to cherish this time alone instead of griping about barking horns, impatient motorists, and incessant flow of traffic or major thoroughfares that turned into gigantic parking lots. She had given herself sufficient time to make the drive comfortably and, more importantly, to think about the upcoming seminar in Manhattan, where she and her twin sister, Paula, were the keynote speakers. She was looking forward to seeing her sister. They had the same mischievous sense of humor by which they could vent a little, but always the discussion ended in sharing new inspirations.
Just before her sister had boarded her flight, they were chatting enthusiastically, sending fast and furious BBM messages about Claudia’s latest muse, Lead without God? You Must Be Kidding . This one had the makings of an appropriate presentation for the Women of Power Conference in Orlando, where they had been invited to speak, three weeks from now. Their book Twin Power had taken off like a rocket and, with it, an unexpected and startling number of requests for speaking engagements, primarily in the United States and the Caribbean, but also around the globe.
“God, we asked for you to be in the midst of it all when we started this project, and we prayed the Prayer of Jabez. But couldn’t you have given us some warning about the maelstrom of activity?” Claudia mused aloud wryly.
She thought back to the time before the book, when she and Paula were praying earnestly but also a little facetiously, “Oh, Lord, bless us indeed, enlarge our territory, and make us the leaders you want us to be.” Even back then, Paula had cautioned about the business of enlarging one’s territory, saying that God had an amusing and extraordinary way of answering prayers.
Claudia had dismissed it, saying glibly, “We’ll write a book and get some publicity, and maybe someone will learn from our experiences.”
After all, wasn’t that what life was about—helping someone along the way and leaving the world, or at least the part of it you occupied, a better place for you having been there?
But Twin Power catapulted to the top of the best-seller’s list in an astonishingly short period of time, and leaders everywhere were using it as reference material in seminars and workshops. Nella Ferguson, their agent, was elated, giving them even more unanticipated information when she told them that the management of at least three companies had decided to read the book as a team and put the recommended principles to work.
Suddenly, Claudia, Paula, and Twin Power were the most sought-after leadership gurus, all because they felt compelled to share their experiences so others in management could learn from their mistakes and duplicate their successes. In the last month alone, they had completed ten speaking engagements, an average of at least two a week. God will bless you and enlarge your territory . Or to put it this way, to whom much is given, of him even more is required.
Although both sisters were in very different managerial positions, there was no denying the similarity of the challenges they faced as leaders in their respective organizations. Claudia, a trained diplomat, was now working at a leading international organization. Paula was a senior-level administrator at one of the largest secondary schools in their hometown of Nassau, Bahamas. Born eight minutes apart, it never failed to amaze them how their thoughts were always on the same wavelength, no matter the distance between them and usually without prior consultation. Even now, separated as they were, their lives continued to run along parallel tracks, most recently dealing with difficult people and the maddening challenges they encountered in their roles as leaders of their organizations.
As she pulled into the garage at La Guardia, Claudia thought this book was indeed a product of divine intervention since the collaboration of thoughts and ideas were compiled with thousands of oceanic miles separating the sisters. Thank God for technology. They had used the Internet, text messages, and phone calls late into the night whenever inspiration struck. They worried that some of the concepts articulated would sound cliché and done to death and would get old quickly, but perhaps a part of the appeal was that they were always able to find a fresh approach to fatiguing issues.
This time, they would be speaking to a group of approximately a hundred men, always a testosterone-laden challenge, on the topic of “Pruning the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” That raised some eyebrows when the topic was suggested, but they were confident that they would be able to pull it off. With God’s help? Yes!
Claudia listened for the beep from the car as she pushed the locking device on her key holder. Then she walked toward the ramp and followed the signs that led to the arrival area of the terminal. She looked forward to seeing her sister. They always tried to meet a day before each engagement so they could hone their presentation, culling or omitting material to make it relevant for the group to whom they were speaking. As delighted as she was with the success of their book, that niggling little sense of doubt found a small space, worming and worrying its way into her thinking.
Paula had expressed a similar concern. All of the what-ifs reared their ugly heads. “What if we are unable to live up to all of the hype? What if we run out of ideas? What if this is too much too soon?”
A single thought buoyed her up: God didn’t bring us this far to leave us.

CHAPTER 2

Pruning the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Paula faced the group of men dressed to impress and intimidate with their immaculately tailored executive looks, suits in shades of corporate grays and business browns. Some exuded an air of impatience. Some wore an expression of boredom on their faces. A few had shot back their cuffs, looking at their watches. And many openly evidenced their desire to be anywhere other than in this session. After all, what could a pair of Bible-toting island girls tell them that they hadn’t heard already? She almost giggled aloud as a ridiculous phrase came to her, “A pair of foot-stomping, Bible-thumping, religious coconuts …”
She pulled herself up sharply. Cut to the chase , she thought. An icebreaker would only be met with heavy frowns, an unwelcomed prolongation of the presentation. She and Claudia had prayed, as they always did before each presentation, and she was assured of the faithful presence of the Holy Spirit to provide an inspired interjection if needed. She was confident about what they had to share. It was solid advice, cultivated from gritty experiences that had no gender bias.
She and Claudia extemporized a version of their usual prayer, “God, we will sow and water if needed, and your Holy Spirit will show up to provide the increase.”
She too