I was eating breakfast this morning at a fast food place this morning and wondered, “does the manager manage the people or the system?” Everyone has a role.
Someone has to take orders.
Someone has to cook the tater tots.
Someone has to cook/heat up the food.
If someone does not do the job, we are tempted to fix the system rather than lead the person.
The system is like the government, education, religion, or business. We we don’t want to deal with people, we make a rule, a law, or a standard. We create a system that leads or dictates behavior.
The bell rings we change classes.
The timer goes off we move a to b
The work is on the board.
Systems don’t care if people are messy or complicated or broken. If someone breaks a rule within the system we protect the system versus helping the person become better.
Real leaders lead people regardless if it’s messy or not. It’s easy to lead a system. Look at the Pharisees of the Bible. In the story of man born blind , these men could have cared less about whether this man was healed and even threatened to kick his parents out of the synagogue.
Systems do not rejoice at progress, barriers overcome, or the blind who come to see. Systems ask if the work is done and how can we make it more efficient.
Leaders of people are willing to get their hands dirty and occasionally bloody, for those they lead.
Jesus walked with his disciples for three years and said all manner of unsystematic like things, such as
Get behind me Satan
You are forgiven, go and sin no more
You’ve been married five times and the man you are with is not your husband.
Systems are not prophetic. Systems are built to control, to manage, to reward and punish, but not lead.
To lead people we must take on the mantle of a prophet and see where people could be, get them to see it, and lead them there.