How Leaders Get the Respect of Others s Rick Warren 1 Timothy 3:1+7 If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil s trap. Prov. 22:1 A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. Eccl. 7:1 (LB) A good reputation is better than the most expensive perfume Key to a good reputation: Problem: We re more concerned about 1 Sam. 16:7, James 2:1-4 THE COST OF EARNING OTHER S RESPECT 1. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH Respected people do not tell lies. Pr. 17:7 (GN) The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out. Pr. 10:9 (GN) It is a wonderful heritage to have an honest father. Pr. 20:7 (LB)
II. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH Arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected. Pr. 29:23 (GN) Pr. 16:18, 18:12, 27:2 Anyone who listens to correction is respected. Pr. 13:18 (GN) III. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give. Pr. 25:15 (GN) He who keeps his oath even when it hurts will never be shaken. Ps. 15:4-5 IV. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH If your goals are good, you will be respected. Pr. 11:27 You will earn the trust and respect of others if you work for good. Pr. 14:22 (GN) ii
V. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH He who gives generously to the needy and shows kindness will be powerful and respected. Psalms 112:9 (GN) Pr. 11:16, 19:17, 21:21 VI. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH If you want favor with both God and man, and a reputation for good judgment and common sense, then trust the Lord completely; in everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you, and crown your efforts with success. Pr. 3:4-6 (LKB) Charm is deceitful and beauty disappears, but a woman who honors the Lord should be praised She deserves the respect of everyone. Pr. 31:30-31 (GN) Good people will be remembered as a blessing, but the wicked will soon be forgotten. Pr. 10:7 (GN) WHAT WILL PEOPLE REMEMBER ABOUT ME? iii
How Leaders Get the Respect of Others s Rick Warren Today I want us to look at Earning the Right to Lead Others. I think it is a right that must be earned. We re going to look at how leaders gain the respect of others. You ve heard me say many times that leadership is influence. The way you can tell you re a leader is you just look over your shoulder. If somebody s following, then you re the leader. If nobody s following, you re not the leader. The moment you have to say to the people in your ministry, I m the leader! you are no longer the leader. Leadership is something that is earned. You earn the right to lead through six character qualities in your life. 1 Timothy 3:1&7 says, If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task He also must have a good reputation with outsiders so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil s trap. Notice it says if you set your heart on being an overseer, that s a good ambition. It s ok to have an ambition to be a leader. The Scripture says that s a legitimate ambition. But it says that if you re going to be leader, you ve got to have a good reputation. Proverbs 22:1 A good name is more desirable than great riches and to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. Your self worth is more important than your net worth. A good name is more important than how much money you ve got in the bank. Also Ecclesiasties 7:1 (Living Bible) A good reputation is better than the most expensive perfume. It s something that s pleasing, sweet. It also cost more than expensive perfume. The key to a good reputation can be summed up in the word character your inner attitudes, your values, your actions. There s a difference between reputation and character. Reputation is what people think you are. Character is what you are. Reputation is how you appear to be. Character is what you actually are. D.L. Moody said, Character is what you are in the dark. Character is what you are when nobody s around. Character is what you have left when you ve lost your reputation. It s what s left over. When you ve lost everything you can lose, the only thing you have left is your character. It takes sometimes a few minutes to a few days to a few hours to build a reputation. People build reputation instantly. It takes a lifetime to build character. The key to a good reputation is having good character. The problem is, we re more concerned about image than character. Most people are more interested in How do I look? How do I appear to others? What do other people think about me? The year we had so much about Gary Hart and all the problems. He said that he was asking people, after the big scandal, for advice on his image problem. When I read that in the paper, I thought, Gary Hart doesn t have an image problem. He has a character problem. It s not image, it s character. He s trying to patch up his image when he needs to be working on what s inside. The problem with the heart was a problem in the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 says Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart. God looks on the inside to determine our character. James 2:1-4 talks about how it s wrong to judge
other people by their appearance. He says when a guy comes to church and he s wearing a certain kind of clothes you tell him, You come sit here at the front. The poor guy you tell to sit at the back. It is wrong to judge by outward appearance. We re to look at character. What does that have to do with leadership? Everything. If leadership is influence, then influence is earned by respect. If you don t have the respect of people, you re not a leader. In this session, I want to talk about how do you earn the respect of other people. If you don t earn the respect of other people, you can t be a leader. How do you earn the respect of those you want to lead in your ministry area? There are six character qualities, all in Proverbs. Proverbs tells us if you do these six things, you will be respected. 1. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH INTEGRITY. That s the foundation of a good reputation. The Bible says, Respected people do not tell lies. Proverbs 17:7. The editor of Forbes magazine said, Integrity is the basis of all true success. If you don t have integrity, it s not real success; it s phony success. A while back, there was a special on television called America s Integrity Crisis. It was talking about how the moral and ethical choices of the world. All of a sudden everybody s interested in ethics again. Magazine article: Whatever happened to ethics? the cover of Time magazine. All of a sudden it s a big issue again. We ve seen the collapse of integrity. In business, the Wall Street scandals and all the scams, etc. In religion Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert. In the government, both parties have had moral collapses. The administration was in trouble for doing arms sales to Iran. The Democrats were having presidential contenders drop out because of promiscuity. Everybody. There s been lots of questions of integrity. Proverbs 10:9 The man of integrity walks securely. He who takes crooked paths will be found out. One of the benefits of walking in integrity is confidence. You re not afraid of anything. You don t have any skeletons in your closet. Nobody can point anything out to you. Confident people who have genuine confidence are people who are not ashamed of anything. They don t have anything to hide. They don t have any skeletons in their closet. Proverbs 20:7 (Living Bible) It is a wonderful heritage to have an honest father. God wants us to be honest in our marriage, in our family, in our relationships at work, with our friends, those things. Proverbs 27:21 (Good News) A person s reputation can be tested. I ve given you a checklist that you can test yourself in these six areas. The first question you ask yourself is, How am I in integrity? How honest am I? All the time, some of the time, when it s convenient. Evaluate yourself on that. 2. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH HUMILITY 2
Proverbs 29:23 (Good News) Arrogance will bring your downfall but if you re humble, you will be respected. This is saying stay humble or you ll stumble. Arrogance will bring your downfall. The Bible says, Clothe yourselves in humility. If you want to dress for success, that s a good way to dress. The Bible says, Before honor is humility. The Bible says Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. I think of so many times, just about the time I think I ve got it all together, God pulls the rug out from under me. It s no problem at all for God to humble you. You can either humble yourself or He will humiliate you. Those are the options. I think there s a misunderstanding about humility that people have many times. Humility does not mean going around putting yourself down all the time. It does not mean saying, I m no good! Humility is not denying your strengths but it s admitting your weaknesses. That s what it means to be humble. Many people think to be humble you re supposed to deny your strengths. No, that s being phony. That s a false humility I really didn t do a good job today It s being honest about your weaknesses. The other thing humility is: Humility is realizing how much you owe to other people. That s a key to humility. When I start thinking, Rick, you ve got it all together, all of a sudden I realize how much I owe to other people. What would I be without teachers that influenced me, ministers that influenced me, parents, books I ve read, seminars I ve attended? We all stand on the shoulders of other people. There s very little that s new in life. Creativity is discovering the source of truth, not creating truth. Humility is just admitting what you are. Look at Paul. Realize that he had this perfect balance. I used to think Paul had an ego trip because he d say things like, Follow me as I follow Christ. But I realize that Paul was just being honest. He was saying, At least I m making an attempt to try to live for the Lord and that s better than a lot of people are doing. Paul could be honest about his strengths because he was also honest about his weaknesses. He wrote them down. He said, I come to you in weakness and fear and trembling I m the least of the apostles the chief of sinners. He preserves for posterity all of his weaknesses on paper. The fact is, every person you meet is better than you at something. Every one of you is better than me at different things. I m better than you at certain things. Will Rogers said, Everybody s ignorant, just on different subjects. The main thing we need to do is learn from people. One of the greatest evidences of humility is Proverbs 13:18. If you want to know if somebody s humble, don t ask them if they re humble, just see how open they are to criticism. Anyone who listens to correction is respected. That s the second step if you want to be a leader. You ve got to be a learner. Anyone who listens to correction is respected. That s how you get respect. Not by pretending you ve got all the answers, but you re respected when you listen to people. I remember hearing about a school principal one time who made a major mistake and everybody in the school knew about it. He thought, I m not going to apologize to everybody. I d be embarrassed and go down in the kids eyes. Then he changed his mind. So he spoke over the intercom to the entire school and said, I made a mistake and I apologize. I want to ask this 3
whole school to forgive me for this decision. He became the most honored principal of that school, simply because the teachers and the kids were so unused to having someone admit it when they were wrong. The kids went up to him saying, I just wish I had a father like you. I wish I had a dad who could admit it when he was wrong. The Bible says, Before honor is humility. So, when we admit we re wrong, rather than being downgraded in people s eyes, we re raised in people s eyes. I ll never forget one time when I was doing a youth revival in a little Baptist church in LA. I had a youth team, with me. After the service was over, we went out to a restaurant. There were some non-christians there in the area and we started witnessing to each other so these non- Christians could overhear what we were doing. Like: one guy would pretend he was a lost person and I started witnessing to him. He was asking questions. We could tell that these people were listening. Our intent was just to get the gospel out to these other people in the next booth. But that was deception, flat out. I didn t think about it. I was only sixteen years old. I ll never forget. I went back to the pastor s home where I was spending the night and he said, Rick, I want to tell you something. I know what you were doing today. You had a good heart. But just think if one of those people came to church tomorrow night and saw that guy leading music and they would know that he was already a Christian and it was all just a put-up. I was smitten in my heart, so embarrassed about the whole thing but I took it. I got on my knees and said, Thank you for telling me that. I admitted it. I asked his forgiveness and asked him to pray for me that I would be a more mature person. I humbled myself before him. I forgot it. It was six months after that, the guy wrote letters praising me to people all over the state. I know why. He had been impressed at that point about an issue that I hadn t thought of. Before honor is humility. If I had defended myself to that guy, he would never have honored me. When we humble ourselves, God always lifts us up. Rate yourself on humility. Am I open to correction? Give yourself a 10. Is it easy to admit wrong? Give yourself a 10. How open am I to those things? 3. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH DEPENDABILITY We admire people who can be counted on, people who are reliable, who are trustworthy. Proverbs 25:15 Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give. Have you ever met anybody like that? Always promising the moon but they deliver nothing. Always saying they re going to help you in the ministry but they don t. They re always long on promises but short on performance. Napoleon once said, Promise everything, deliver nothing. He could have been a politician. That s not the way to live. I remember when we did our first fund raising on the land. People made big commitments. I went back three years later and looked at what was the result. The three largest gifts promised were never given and the people all moved away. They promised things but they didn t deliver. 4
It says, Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give. I read that verse one day in my quiet time and it really convicted me of the promises I make as a parent. Many times I ll say things off the cuff without even thinking how seriously Amy, Joshua, Matthew are taking those promises. Sure, I ll take you fishing someday. Can we go swimming today? Yeah, if it gets warm. It s warm to them and they re ready to go. Then later when I m too tired to perform I back out of it and it wasn t a big thing to me. But it was a big thing to them. Psalm 15:4-5 He who keeps his oath, even when it hurts, will never be shaken. Reliability promotes stability. It makes us stable in our lives. Question three: Do I keep my promises? Can I be counted on? Evaluate ourselves on dependability. 4. LIVING BY PRIORITY Respect is earned through living by priority. Proverbs 11:27 If your goals are good you ll be respected. Proverbs 14:22 (Good News) You will earn the trust and respect of others if you work for good. If you want to be a leader, have good goals. If your goals are respected and your goals are good, you will be respected. This is talking about having a worthwhile purpose, having a cause, investing your time in things that count, using your life wisely. The average American will live 25,550 days. How you invest that time is totally up to you. You can waste it, you can spend it, and you can invest it. But you ve got to have worthy goals. Statistics: If you live to be seventy years old you ll spend 23 years of your life sleeping, 9 years watching TV (nine solid years of TV!), 6 years traveling, 2 years dressing, 17 years working, 6 years playing, 6 years eating, 1 year in church. The key is having the right goals. Having the right priorities is the secret of an effective life. It says, Have good goals. I ve talked to a lot of guys who had bad goals. They spent their lives climbing the ladder of success, they get to the top and find it s leaning against the wrong wall. The question to ask yourself: Am I making the best use of my time? If you want to be a leader, if you want to be respected, then you have to have good goals, which is talking about time management. Am I making the best use of my time? 5. THROUGH GENEROSITY Proverbs 11:16, 19:17, 21:21. Psalm 112:9 (Good News) He who gives generously to the needy and shows kindness will be powerful and respected. The fact of life is, no one is ever honored 5
for what they ve received. They always are honored for what they give. We re never honored for what we keep, what we get, but what we give away. Andrew Carnegie once wrote down some goals and when he died they found them in his desk: I m going to spend the first half of my life making all the money that I can and I m going to spend the second half of my life giving it all away. And he did. As a result, his name is still known years and years later. Generations later. There s only one problem with that philosophy. Nobody knows when they re going to die. How are you going to know when to start giving away? How does he know when he s at the half way point? Do your given while you re livin then you re knowin where it s goin. When it comes to giving, some people stop at nothing. What kind of giver am I? One Stingy; Five Cheerful; Ten Sacrificial. Respect is earned through generosity. 6. RESPECT IS EARNED THROUGH SPIRITUALITY In other words, through making God the priority in your life, getting close to Him. Proverbs 3:4-6 (Living Bible) If you want favor with God and man and a reputation for good judgment and common sense, then trust the Lord completely. In everything you do put God first and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success. Notice it says, If you want favor with man as well as with God... When you put God first in your life, it not only gives you favor with God but it gives you favor with man. People are drawn to those who naturally love the Lord, those who are naturally in love with Jesus Christ. Not some put on, not people who fake it, pretend, not those super surapy mystics who try to over spiritualize everything. But real spirituality. It s not by accident that Billy Graham has been one of the ten most admired men on the list for the last twelve years. He s always there. Mother Teresa is always there. People, even out and out pagans, admire people who are genuinely spiritual, people who are like Jesus. Not fake spirituality, not religious, but genuinely spiritual. A verse about women: Charm is deceitful and beauty disappears but a woman who honors the Lord should be praised. She deserves the respect of everyone. I think this says that spirituality deserves our respect. The question on this number six: How deep is my relationship to God? Shallow One; Growing maybe Five. These are the six areas that produce respect. We earn respect through integrity, humility, generosity, spirituality, dependability, living by priority. These are the issues. 6
Good people will be remembered as a blessing but the wicked will soon be forgotten. What will people remember about me? What are people going to remember about you? Twenty years from now what are people going to remember about you? Are they going to remember that you were dependable, humble, responsible, a person of integrity these kinds of things? When you die, wouldn t it be great if people could say about you, I was so blessed to know that person. What a privilege it was to know that person. Just to have that person as a leader in my church. Or as a husband/wife/friend. Leadership is influence, but you cannot lead without these issues. They are the basis to build respect. When you have the respect of people, people will follow you anywhere. Prayer: Heavenly Father, I pray that some of these verses we looked at today would be a reminder to us. The principles are not new and yet they help us to realize that the bottom line in serving You is character. I pray that we would have the character of Jesus Christ. Lord, I want to be a person of integrity. I want to be a person of dependability, spirituality and to live by priority. I want to be a generous and giving person. All of these characteristics we looked at today. I know that as we build in the depth of our lives, You ll be responsible for the breadth of our ministry. I pray that when we die, people will be able to remember good things about us and say that we loved You and we were godly people. Help us to be more effective in leading by leading by example. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen 7