Listen to how leaders talk about the people who work for them. My team. My people. My headcount. My resources.
The words are ordinary and mostly harmless. They also carry an assumption worth checking: that the team belongs to the leader.
An older tradition says otherwise. In that view a leader is a steward, someone trusted with the care of what belongs to another. A steward is expected to hand back what was entrusted in better condition than received. The test is simple. An owner asks, what can these people do for me? A steward asks, what are these people becoming while they are in my care?
The oldest writing on leadership is full of rulers who forgot the difference. They began as caretakers and ended as owners, using people up to serve their own plans. The pattern has not changed much in three thousand years.
The idea. Every step of the LEADS Path grows from this one conviction. You listen because the people closest to the work know things you do not. You earn trust because trust cannot be demanded. You allow autonomy, delegate authority, and share leadership because the goal was never to keep people dependent on you. The goal is people who are stronger when they leave your team than when they arrived.
A leader who treats people as resources will measure output. A leader who treats people as entrusted will measure growth, and usually gets the output as well.
The action for this week. Pick one person on your team. Write one sentence answering this question: what is this person better at today than a year ago, because of working with me? If the sentence is hard to write, you know where to spend the next month.
“Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”1 Corinthians 4:2, ESV
Jake
P.S. Strong lions build strong prides. See where yours stands. Take the LEADS Self-Check.