Gentleness

Because I said so…

How often have we heard those words from leaders who want to get things done. To be fair, most reactions like that occur when stress is high, and usually there is an underlying level of fear that begins to creep in and impacts how we treat others. Generally speaking, when things are moving forward relatively smoothly, being gentle is an achievable outcome.

What usually happens when things heat up and pressure rises . . . tempers and personalities tend to flare. As we consider the upside-down kingdom qualities, it appears that gentleness has to be an area of focus. We see in Hebrews that we are not called to be gentle when it is convenient for us. In fact, we see that ignorance and willful disobedience are at the forefront, and yet that is still our call to be gentle in those moments.

It seems that we have to remember that even at our best we all have moments of weaknesses. Knowing that to be true, leaders who are self aware enough to recognize this in themselves and remain focused on exercising gentleness will, in the end, gain more trust and alignment with their teams when they know you will respond gently.

Questions to Consider

1. What is a recent example where you did not respond gently, and what would you do differently in the future?
2. How would responding with gentleness manifest if one of your team members willfully disobeyed resulting in significant loss?