For the past 15 years in HR, I have studied and learned the best practices of leaders in many organizations. You know all those top 10 characteristics of a great leader: listens, sets goals, communicates effectively, trustworthy...and the list goes on.
I have seen few really inspirational leaders and I have witnessed first-hand some poor leaders, as I am sure y’all have too! I have even tried to change some leaders, imagine that! Me wanting someone else to change! But, really what else is HR? But to be a change agent! And I thrive on a good challenge!
Fortunately, God has protected me as I boldly tried to change some leaders to become what I thought they should be, for the glory of His Kingdom of course. I went as far as to tell a President of a company that he needed Jesus and until he found Him I was not talking to him anymore! And then I hung up on him. Amazingly, I still kept my job so I guess maybe he might have had an encounter with Jesus or I just got some serious grace! Neither of us spoke of the incident again.
What makes me most excited about my current position is that I get to practice what I have learned over the past 15 years. God is allowing me to use my experiences, my education and my talents to affect change for His Kingdom. What an exciting time to be in HR, in my world anyway! But, interestingly enough, this time, it has nothing to do with me (try to imagine that!) it is about the ways in which God is working on all the hearts of the leaders of Fellowship Technologies and how God is using us to sharpen each other.
We recently went through an internal employee satisfaction survey where the employees got to rate us from 1-5 on 15 different character qualities. After the scores were in, we got to see how the employees thought we were doing on each of the individual character qualities. You know it is always tough, even humiliating when you find out people do not think you are perfect! But God calls us to change our sinful behaviors either by convicting us when we read His Word or by someone else telling us. It’s the “someone else telling us” that I have the biggest problem with!
Amazingly, the more I read God’s Word the more I know when He sends that “someone else to tell me” about myself. I may feel overwhelmed by all that God is showing me regarding my sin and pride but that is exactly where He wants me. He wants me to live in Him and not by my own abilities. You see the essence of God’s grace is that it is a free gift, that it is undeserved and that it is given to the helpless failures like me. It’s a free gift. It’s undeserved. It is given to the helpless. He will give me enough grace each day to manage the changes He has in store for me and me alone. He knows the plans he has for me, plans to prosper me and give me a hope. I just have to be obedient when someone else is the messenger!
Grace and Peace to you and I pray you recognize when God sends someone to tell you about the changes He has in store for you, as coming from God and not the messenger.
Tammy