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Time or Task: How Many Hours Should Leaders Work?

I asked the lead pastor if the youth group was healthy and growing.

He told me it had doubled in size and lots of great things were happening with the kids. I asked if the parents were happy, and he told me: “Yeah, they love him. But I can’t ever keep him in the office.”

I told him to fire the kid and give me his phone number so we could hire him. 

It’s unrealistic to expect a staff member to think like an owner. Business owners and senior ministry leaders often complain their staff members don’t have the same work ethic and concern for the big picture that they have.

My answer is, “Of course not.” That’s what sets an owner or top leader apart.  

If everyone had the same drive, work ethic and dreams that owners and top leaders have, no one would ever be satisfied in a staff role.

Healthy organizations need leaders and role players. We need folks who see the big picture and strive to climb to the top. But we also need folks who thrive on doing their job and have no real desire to do more.

It’s a sign of emotional immaturity to assume everyone is just like me (or will be when they grow up). Yet I find that’s how lots of us think.

You can see it in the way we try to change people. We pepper them with facts and then run them through experiences based on the belief that if they only knew what we know and experienced what we’ve experienced, they’d see the world and behave as we do.

But nothing could be further from the truth. We’re all different to the core. That’s why one of the secrets to building and maintaining a healthy staff is learning to see, treat and evaluate everyone as an individual.

No one is an island—not even a superstar. If “how many hours should I expect” really means “I can never get a hold of that prima donna,” the problem isn’t the amount of hours spent in the office. It’s a lack of respect and teamwork.