Embrace the Boring Stepchild of Leadership! Part 1 of 3

Leadership Network asked me to participate in a Sage Conference by responding to the question: What is the most important thing you have learned over the years?

After reeling from the suggestion that I had actually entered into Sage-dom(!), I started to ponder: “Wow! There are so many key learnings. How do I narrow them down to the one most important?”

And then it occurred to me. The most important thing I have learned is to manage well.

Manage well?!!

For a decade now, leadership has been the rage. Management, on the other hand, feels like the boring stepchild of leadership. Leadership gets the front page press; management is buried in Section D.

But I am convinced that management is actually the most important thing any person does on a daily basis. We need to learn to manage well in three spheres of life:

• Self management
• Home management
• Community management

When I managed my life well in these three arenas and in that order, my life and work went well. When I did this wrong, my life fell apart with disastrous results.

Managing our lives in these three areas is also quite biblical. Oikos in biblical Greek means house; nomos is management. The Oikonomos is commonly referred to in the New Testament as the household manager engaged in the ordering of the household affairs. Oikonomos can refer to how we manage our lives (1 Tim. 1:4), how we manage the relationships of those closest to us (Luke 12:42), and how we manage at our place of business or among partners (Luke 16:1). Good managers are concerned about the household of their individual lives, the household of those closest to them (literally, those at home) and the household of their larger community.

These three arenas of oikonomos form the three articles in this series.

In addition, we are called to manage with love in these three arenas of life. When we manage well our personal lives, we are loving ourselves in the best sense. When we manage well the relationships of those closest to us, we exhibit our love for them. When we manage well our broader network of relationships, we live out God’s love in the world in substantive ways.

Management—though often thought of as something rather boring and routine—is actually the thrilling place of love in action in the three spheres of life.

Manage Your Life Well

The first arena of love is your own life. The able management of your life is the healthiest form of self-love.

The ancient Greeks thought of the person in terms of mind, body, and soul. When I manage these areas well, my life goes well. To manage them well means to fill my mind with good things, feed my body with nutritious food, and engage in proper exercise and good rest, and nourish my soul upon the Word and worship of God. This is not only self-management; it is also a practical form of self-love. It is taking care of your self—a gift from God.

I have a decorative fountain at home that pours water over several tiers of slate. I can stare at it for hours, watching the different ways the water travels down to the pool below. But there would be no water flowing out if there were no reservoir below! Love cannot pour out of us until it has first lodged within us!

Some are so full of self-loathing, this feels like impossibility. They feel unworthy of self-care. Others are so driven to achieve that they don’t spend the time necessary to take care of themselves first.

Believe me when I say that self-care is the engine that makes all else go. Do this right and all else will go better. While it may sound selfish, it actually strengthens the self to then live God’s love in the world.

In my next article, I discuss what it means to manage well your closest relationships.

Questions for personal reflection, online discussion, or small groups:

• Using the Greek notion of mind, body, and soul as a way of thinking about self-care, which one of these three parts of you is the strongest? Which one is the weakest?
• The article suggests using the Greek notion of mind, body, and soul as a way to order self-care. Do you agree with these three distinctions? Is there another way of thinking of self-care that works better for you?
• Do you agree that good management of your life should follow the three spheres of life— self, home, community—and in that order? Why would self-management in a different order matter?
• What one thing do you need to do differently to strengthen your self-care? What will it take to start doing that one thing today?
• For more on the topic of self-care, read “Retreats Provide Renewal and Healing” and “You Define Success for Yourself.”