LESSON 7 :: Proactivity, Boldness, and Individuality

Developing the strength of action to move your business and vision forward.

• Keep Your Staff in Hand In Cecil B. De Mille’s movie The Ten Commandments, Moses never went anywhere without his staff in his hand. Do you know what your most powerful and precious resources are? Leaders and successful businesspeople must direct their resources with concentration and the intention to succeed. Keep referring to your mission, and you will be able to effectively marshal your resources.

Form a Team

The second strength on which we will focus is Action. All missions require action. On each page of this lesson, we will look at one of four key skills necessary to enliven and continue the momentum of your energized, integrated work.

Truly gifted leaders realize they don’t have all the gifts! One of the first steps we need to take in this area of Action is to understand the importance of forming a team to get things done. The teams may be long term or ad hoc, but they are important to carry forth the mission.

An Omega leader draws people in by having and articulating a plan. Because we know that everything is alive, we know that everything is full of possibilities. The people around us are full of possibilities. They are gifted in ways we are not, and for that reason may just be waiting to be drawn into our plan, which matches their plan, as well.

As Omega leaders, we draw people into our plans and missions by giving them a sense of the long view. How will this impact others’ lives for years to come? What change will we see in our community because of what we are doing? What ill can we reverse? The long view is always informed by the most noble and visionary pictures.

Going the Extra Mile

To attract and keep a good team, we must be willing to trouble ourselves on the behalf of others. Going the extra mile to care about them personally, asking about their families, sending notes of appreciation, or specifically telling them when they have done a good job are all courtesies that may be overlooked by someone who is not seeking to integrate spirituality with work. Our task as those who are is to hold people in esteem and let them know we do by troubling ourselves on their behalf.

One of the greatest votes of confidence we can give to others, and at the same time ensuring the mission will go on after we pass on, is to train our replacements well. Give them the tools, resources, and, more importantly, the heart to carry on the work ahead of them as they claim it as their own.

As an Omega leader, you will no doubt also encounter people on your teams who will let you down or even do you harm. Remember: As a spiritreneur, you are called to your work, and no one can ultimately ruin your plans.

• Call the Question “Jesus empowered people because he was willing to call the question ‘Who do you think I am? Who do you think you are? What do you want? Where is your heart?’ He asked question after question. Perhaps he asked so many questions because one of his mottos was ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.’” — Jesus CEO, p. 94

Break Ranks

All great leaders and successful spiritreneurs have had to step out of marching file and move to their own drummer at one time or another. They have had to break ranks.

The integrated businessperson will do this in at least five ways:

1. Spiritreneurs Must Be Expansive Thinkers
   We know that we don’t follow; we lead. We don’t report the news; we make the news. We are often thinking in ways that the rest don’t regarding industry trends, how we treat people, what we decide is important, and who we ally with and who we don’t. We are willing to be the first to try something or buck a standard. We think more largely and broadly.
2. Spiritreneurs Need to Be Willing to Branch Out
   We are called not to settle for a little piece of land. The Divine constantly urges us to lift up our eyes and see all the possibilities on the horizon and beyond. We are to shake the dust and ashes from our feet and minds and expand our vision, influence, and contribution. Integrated businesspeople know there is always more than the eye can see.
3. Spiritreneurs Know that Authority Is Assumed and Not Conferred
   What is the cost of timidity? What are the rewards of being bold? What would you do if you were 10 times bolder? Go out and do it.
4. Spiritreneurs Take Action with Boldness When We Dare to Question and Change the Unit of Measurement
   As we saw in Lesson Two, spiritreneurs must define their own success. When we do this, we quite often challenge popular notions of how success is measured. What do you see around you as units of measurement? Money, looks, gross national product, status, brand names? One hour with the television will give you a remarkably clear picture of our cultural units of measurement. We break ranks when we dare to declare that there may be other ways to measure worth, achievement, and victory.
   
5. Spiritreneurs Must Be Turn-Around Specialists
   Even if the popular trend is going one way, we must be equipped by our mission and our call to change the tide if we believe it should be another. Is the call for increased dividends really healthy at this point? Are the hiring and firing practices of the trade fair and ethical? Are people being given the best treatment and service? Turn-around specialists don’t operate by cookbook techniques. We survey situations and trust in the One who called us in the first place to provide the insight and direction, whatever that might be.

The spiritreneurial leader is able to break ranks.

• Get Visible
  Spiritreneurs and Omega leaders know that to get their mission accomplished, they must get visible. We cannot keep a low profile. We need to speak from the mountaintops and in every setting we find ourselves. We must not be afraid to stand out from the crowd. What are 10 ways you could increase your visibility?

Practice the WOWSE Concept

As businesspeople, we do indeed know the power and necessity of forming and empowering teams. Yet sometimes we are called and compelled to practice the WOWSE concept: With Or Without Someone Else.

The concept comes into play when we know we are to move forward on something when it seems no one wants to support or go with us. This is an area that requires keen discernment and ultimate trust. While there are times when lack of support may be the donkey in the road of which we spoke in the last lesson, sometimes it simply means others cannot, or will not, see the things we see, and we must do something on our own.

Stepping Out

Jesus was a model in this respect, as well. Always stretching, creating, and doing new things, he had his moments when he knew he had to step out even though others stayed in the shadows. In those moments, he recognized what those seeking to integrate their faith into their everyday world of work get to glimpse at times — we are ultimately never alone.

One of the marks of the WOWSE concept is the ability and willingness to do an end run. When you cannot get something done the conventional way, you find another way to do it. You find a way to get it done with or without someone, but you get it done. By the book — or more often not — you find the way to promote your cause, communicate your message, or make your contribution.

In the end, in order develop the strength of Action more fully, we must be able to rise above the disappointments, the slights, the misunderstandings, and the obstacles. Spiritreneurs keep a heavenly perspective by being “in the world, yet not of it” as they conduct business.

• The Call to Leadership Leaders are called from many directions and in many ways. I believe that the Old Testament indicates three ways that we are called to leadership: the burning heart, the burning bush, and the burning house. Intrigued? For more information of each of these types of call, see p. 105 of Jesus CEO.

Say, “Why Not Me?”

This kind of question is not the self-pitying kind that pouts and fusses because others have and do things we don’t have and do. It is an energizing question inspired by the divine forces that are calling us to evaluate the extent to which our present environment and relationships match the ideal that we want for ourselves. Having identified those matches, we then ask “Why not me?” All people who would describe themselves as truly successful by their own definition at one point saw the picture of their success in someone else and thought, “They did it. Why not me?”

I’m much more interested in why people can do something than why they can’t. We will never go forward to develop mastery in Action if we keep looking at the obstacles instead of the possibilities.

This is the essence of what moves spiritreneurs and Omega leaders to Action: the amused and amazed openness to the universe of the question, “Why not me?”

Coming Up

In this lesson, we learned that leaders and spiritreneurs who are going to master the skill of Action will know how to marshal resources, will be bold and proactive, and will always seek to identify in others the best and greatest of what they hope for themselves and ask, “Why not me?”

In our eighth and final lesson, we will look at mastering the Strength of Relationships. Our entire society and all systems depend on relationships. We’ll focus on the relational key with patterns and habits that will make you stand out as a uniquely gifted leader in this arena.

Please visit the Message Board with insights and questions you have regarding the strength of Action. Who can you identify who has it? How do you embody it yourself? Where would you like to grow in this characteristic? Your wisdom and input help all of us grow together as we seek a richer understanding of spiritreneuring.

Assignment: Proactivity, Boldness, and Individuality

Read the “Strength of Action” section in Jesus CEO. Consider the following questions as you read:

1. Who is your real team, both paid and unpaid? Who could be?
2. If you did what was really in your heart, with whom or what would you come into conflict?
3. What commitment are you willing to make happen with or without someone else?

Who is doing what you would like to do more of and are you asking yourself, “Why not me?”