Teaching Those Who Are Listening!

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“The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.”

~ Caryl Haskins

How do we, as Eagle Leaders, separate the sincere from the insincere? Leadership is all about forward progress! The problem is often discovering who wants to move forward and who is ‘pretending’ to want to move forward. What secret can we learn from the master mentor when it comes to this all-too common dilemma?

Watching Jesus operate helps us understand His strategy and His words! In one of His many ‘sifting’ events, we discover a key method (which we will spend a couple of lessons on) …

On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matthew 13:1-9 (NKJV)

We become like Jesus when …

o We call people to pay attention to what we are saying … even when we are being purposefully oblique.

If you read down the chapter here (and get ahead of us a bit), you will discover Jesus is purposefully looking for the leaders in the crowd. His ploy is to whet their appetite enough to get them to come to him for more. And thus, excellent teaching / training / coaching seeks after the curious in the crowd (note his last sentence above: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”).

Curious people make better leaders because they are self-motivated. Self-motivation is one of the essential qualities of leadership because it is the engine by which all accomplishment is driven. Any leader, with any experience, knows the impossibility of accomplishing anything of significance with people who need constant motivation!

Today, separate the ‘go-ers’ from the ‘no-ers’ in leadership by using curiosity as your bait. Catch a boatload of quality with this vital hook! (More on this next time.)

© 2009 By Dr. Matthew Lee Smith

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