THE SPREAD’S OLD MAN
I once worked on a big outfit called the Pleasant Valley Ranch. Every week a cowboy or two rolled up that long, dusty driveway in their beat up pickup to ask to see the old man about a job. Now, the old man was the owner of the spread and the phrase had nothing to do with his age.
One of the workers named Jesse had worked on the place for thirty-two years. When he started, the boss was only twenty-nine years old. “But we called him the old man even back then,” Jesse reported.
A TERM OF RESPECT
The term, while not spoken to the boss’s face, is never used in a disrespectful sense. It’s a term of endearment in the countryside and cattle country. It denoted respect for the boss’s leadership ability. The men acknowledged that by calling him the old man, a characteristic that recognized a good man. And a good worker didn’t stay long working for a fool or a jerk.
THE GIFT OF LEADERSHIP
Every ranch, business, organization, church, and family needs someone with those special leader gifts. Leadership is that unique blend of decisiveness, knowledge, skill, common sense, fairness, creativity, and divine drive, the spark behind success. God gives some individuals that gift.
“If a man’s gift is leadership,” Paul writes in Romans 12:8, “Then let him govern diligently.”
A GIFT FROM GOD
The trouble in many businesses is that the leaders assume it was by their own wonderful intelligence and effort they achieved their present position. It never enters some folks’ heads that they have been given that ability by God, for a purpose that goes way beyond their salary and the company’s bottom line.
The real tragedy is that there are some in church leadership, too, who forget they have been given that divine gift to use for His will and to be done His way.
UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE
Whether you call the boss the old man or the pastor, he has a more important role than just assigning the work and signing the payroll. Once a boss understands that, the task becomes much more personally rewarding for himself and more meaningful for the workers.
Stephen Bly
Circa 1995
Leadership Qualities Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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“The Old Man” audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.
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