Are you seeing some signs of arrogance? (188-4)

How a leader sees the team determines how that leader treats the team. Read Malachi 2:10.

The questions in verse 10, “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?” If answered seriously, these questions would shape how a leader sees their team and change the leader/follower relationship in virtually every case. Seeing your teammates as God’s creation, a person He personally designed with specific talents and gifts to serve at your side in a team situation will definitely change both the leader and the teammates’ behavior toward each other and the team.

Teams thrive on mutual respect and suffer when leadership is aloof or arrogant. Arrogance in effect says, “I am superior”; arrogance says, “I will take your idea under consideration” and “I will determine if your idea is good enough for me to give it any more time.” Arrogance says, “My time is important and your time is not.” Arrogance destroys a team’s desire to participate. Arrogance quantifies people’s importance using one’s self as the measuring stick. Malachi stated we all have one Father who created us and said we “profane the covenant” when we devalue people.

God created structure and teams must have structure to function. Structure indicates that a team will have a leader. Leaders have a specific role on the team as does each teammate. When a leader somehow decides, because of their God-given role, that they are created unequal or somehow created with more importance to God than their teammates it causes the situation God addressed through His prophet Malachi.

Leaders must lead and that will put some special decision-making responsibility and privilege on them. These special elements of their God-given assignment can lead to faulty thinking and the temptation to assume God sees them differently – somehow better than, or superior to their teammates. When this happens a team becomes demoralized and the leader does not get their best work. This creates a vicious cycle because when the leader gets less than a team’s best work it reinforces their decision that they were created somehow superior and the cycle deepens. The irony is that if the leader treated their team as God’s gift they may actually see their team for the first time as God designed it.

Have you allowed yourself to slip into thinking more of your own importance than you should? Are you seeing some signs of arrogance? Do your actions demonstrate that you believe your time is valuable but other’s time is not? Do you call last minute meetings assuming others schedules must change to meet yours? Have you ever thought or said “If I could only clone myself things would be so easy around here? If these are your normal habits you may be arrogant and not know it. God hates arrogance. There is wisdom in Ecclesiastes 4:9 which says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”