The Right Car

I think one of the major tasks of a leader is to get everyone in the right place at the right time. The leader is to have the larger vantage point in a ministry. Ever so vigilantly, a leader assesses the talents of the team and leads everyone to the discovery of their slot. There are a lot of right slots for a lot more people than we often see.

You want to be in the right time. You need to be doing the right thing. You have to be in the right place. And with the right people. All the while seeking the right goals. Using the right methods that fit the place and time. You just want to be right.

A leader brings synchronicity to a group. I have always enjoyed working with leaders that give me the room to wiggle around and find my slot. Making the right opportunities available is a great favor a leader gives a follower.

I am not sure how you teach someone to do that. A lot of it is instinct. But I think most of it comes from working with someone who is good at handing out opportunities that fit the moment. Experience isn’t necessarily a good teacher. Experience can be the source of a lot of bad habits. But I have learned to treasure the experience of those more experienced than I.

I have visited this topic a lot lately. I am feeling a need to give some opportunities to a whole new group of developing leaders. I am collecting opportunities now. And I am trying to discern the right people. But more than that I want both to be at the right time and place.

Four months ago I was consulting a group of church leaders in Washington D.C. One of the leaders picked me up in the morning early. We had a ways to drive in the D.C. traffic so it was pretty early. I am not a morning person. I don’t engage until 10:30. I put in my dues to please everyone but the truth is I am worthless until then.

Anyway we stopped to get a cup of coffee and a roll at a Seven-Eleven. My friend used the restroom and I went ahead to make my coffee up and check out the pastries. I was all paid up and eating my sugar-coated donut for quite awhile standing at a counter provided for customers with coffee in hand. My friend was gone a long time. I will withhold his name as not to embarrass him. So I decided to go back to the car figuring he was going to be awhile getting his coffee together.

There were two cars in the lot that were the same make and model. I looked for a second and decided the first car was the one I wanted. So I walked up and opened the door. As I slid in I put my coffee in the coffee holder and took a bite off of my donut. Then I looked and there was a guy in the driver’s seat. He didn’t say a word. He looked like if he had had a gun I would have been dead.

The only thing I could come up with to say was, “Oops, wrong car.”

My friend walked out of the convenience store as I was climbing out of the poor unsuspecting guy’s front seat. All I could say again as I lifted my hands was, “Oops wrong car.”

It’s an awful feeling being at the wrong place in the wrong car at the wrong time. Everything would have been fine but in my hurry to get out of the car I left my coffee.

I had to go back and tap on his window and ask for my coffee. He was nice and unlocked the door. I thanked him and was on my way to the right place.

The story of Queen Esther is one of my favorites. She was the right person for the right time and the world was changed. She knew it was her time, too. There is no better feeling than knowing you’re the one for the time. I think all humans hunger to be in the right slot with their lives. This is one of the greatest gifts a leader can offer a person.

When I was in my twenties I had several wonderful mentors. A couple of them got the timing thing off quite a bit of the time but I learned from watching them. But I had two leaders I worked with that knew leaders were mostly people who brokered opportunities for others to thrive in. And they gave me an array of opportunities to grow and stretch. I loved life. I learned to do the same thing pretty well.

Its seems to me that in my thirties I was early on everything. I was the youngest to achieve many things. And there was a reward I learned for being the first one there at the youngest age. I ended up in a lot of the wrong places at the wrong time. Fortunately I ended up in a few more right places at the right time and things worked out.

Now I am into being a little more stealth in my leadership. I think the best kind of leadership allows people to find for themselves their slot. It is for the leader to pray and watch, encourage and teach. I have also learned that the more experienced I have gotten the more humble I am about what I do. If you do this long enough you learn how little of it has to do with you starting anything and how much it has to do with seeing the opportunity for you and others and seizing it.