Be a Leader Not a Ruler

Strengths and Weaknesses
The New England Patriots won Super Bowl LIII, which made them the best football team in the world. Julian Edelman was voted most valuable player of the game, which made him the best football player in the world. He achieved that award by playing the position of wide receiver. Now get this—when the Patriots drafted him, he was a college quarterback. So how does Coach Bill Belichick know to use him as a receiver? He knows his story.
Coach Belichick could have released Edelman as a result of his ineffectiveness as a potential NFL quarterback. But instead, he found Julian’s strengths and used them to help the team win. Can you imagine how many players could have been released because of weaknesses? But instead, Coach Belichick focuses on the players’ strengths and builds game plans around them. And by doing so, the Patriots have made it to the Super Bowl nine times in his nineteen years as their head coach, and they won six of them. That’s not a bad record when you consider there are teams that have never made it to the big game—like the Detroit Lions, for example, and they have been in the league since 1930.
My point is that if Coach Belichick wasted time focusing on the players’ weaknesses, he may have been watching the Super Bowl from the comfort of his living room.
Focusing on the strengths of musicians and vocalists will have similar advantages. For example, you may have a song you would like to add, but it has a fairly complicated drum part. So you leave the song out or perhaps resort to simplifying it, and it never sounds quite right. Now imagine how helpful it would be to know that one of the drummers on the team used to play for a Rush tribute band. Anybody who is familiar with Neil Peart’s playing knows what I am getting at here. This means you have a drummer who can play virtually anything, so let’s break it down a little.

Weaknesses
Right off the bat, the negativity of the word weakness should be a red flag because God would never put anything negative into our thoughts. Therefore, it must be coming from the enemy. And as positive as it may sound on the surface, looking for weaknesses to improve upon in team members can be hurtful, condescending, and insulting, not to mention evil. Yes, evil. As we know all too well, the devil is very clever, and he will stop at nothing to try to thwart us. He knows that he can’t take away our salvation and that he can’t avoid his eternal damnation, but if he can keep us from bringing others to Christ, he has won a small victory. You may ask, “How would that apply here?”
He plants ideas in your head and makes you believe they’re your own so you look for areas of improvement and sit people down to talk to them about it. You may do so in a kind and loving manner, yet you’re unwittingly attacking their confidence because then they may begin to doubt the things they do well. And it can become an uphill battle for them from there. If that happens, they can feel unworthy and believe that they don’t have the ability to bring others into God’s Kingdom. In other words, the devil is working through you to glorify his own kingdom.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
—1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)

In 2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV), Paul says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” So how do we do that? I like the way Paul puts it in Philippians 4:8–9 (NIV); he says,
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty positive to me, which brings us to the flip side of this.

Strengths
As a leader of any church, ministry, or team, it’s our responsibility to build up and edify the members who look up to us, which is why it is so important to look for and focus on their strengths. When you sit someone down and talk about what he or she does well, it makes that person feel more confident in his or her abilities. And the more confident people feel, the quicker they will grow. In fact, this will even help their weaknesses improve faster because they will begin to believe they can overcome them. Now that’s God at work and not the enemy.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
—Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)