Work & Vocation
I have just been put in charge of a team and I am out of my depth. How do I lead people well?
“Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.”
Moses' father-in-law watches him judging disputes alone from morning until night and tells him plainly that he will wear himself out. The advice is structural: appoint capable and honest people, delegate the ordinary cases, keep only the hard ones. It is the oldest management advice in Scripture, and it treats sustainable leadership as a matter of design rather than stamina.
“But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:”
Jesus says this after two of his disciples lobby for the top positions, causing predictable resentment among the other ten. He does not tell them ambition is forbidden; he inverts what greatness means. Authority in his framing is measured by who is served through it, which is a hard standard for anyone newly holding it over other people's livelihoods.
A path forward
Have a proper one-to-one with every person in your first fortnight and ask what gets in the way of their work. Then remove one of those obstacles.
Delegate one thing you are holding onto because you do it faster yourself. Doing everything personally is not humility, it is a bottleneck.
Pray for each person on your team by name once a week. Managing people you have prayed for is a very different experience from managing headcount.
Closing verse
“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.”
- Proverbs 27:23
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