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Have You Ever Been Corrected By Your Leader?
“People who accept discipline are on the pathway to life, but those who ignore correction will go astray.”
– Proverbs 10:17 NLT
Whoever learns from correction is wise. Nobody likes to be corrected. We like the affirmation that comes when people like what we do. We like to hear words like “good job” or “I’m proud of you.”
We need to face the fact that correction is part of good leadership. If someone like a teacher, boss, coach or parent is taking the time to correct us, it is because they are trying to teach us something new. If we refuse the correction, we don’t learn.
Wrong responses to correction. We can have right and wrong responses to corrections.
Here are a few of the wrong ways to react towards correction.
Hurt feelings – If you allow your feelings to get hurt, it will stop you in your tracks. At this point you stop learning and you stop growing. If you allow the hurt feelings to hang around, they can turn into un-forgiveness which is like drinking poison. If your leader hurts your feelings, deal with it. Pick yourself up, forgive them and keep running your race. I have seen many leaders make major decisions based on hurt feelings. God leads you by His Spirit, not by your hurts. Never make decisions based on hurt feelings.
Defending Yourself – When we get corrected by a leader, we tend to want to defend ourselves. This is a wrong response. If your leader is correcting you, he wants to know that you hear what he is saying and you understand what he is asking you to do. Forget the past. You don’t need to defend yourself, that just clouds the air.
Right response to correction:
- Have the right attitude. Your leader is your friend.
- Listen to what your leader is saying.
- Ask questions if you don’t understand.
- Make the changes he or she is asking for.
- Forget the past and keep running your race.
These are important lessons we need to remind ourselves of occasionally. It is also important to teach our kids in ministry these principles – it makes your job easier.
To teach this lesson, I used an Object Lesson from Super Church 2.0 Leadership, Lesson 6, “Protect My Feelings Please”.
This is good Mark. I had a recent account with a leader in this area. Even though it was not easy to correct, the Holy Spirit helped me and it came out well. After thinking about what was confronted to the person, they made a change for the better, and even though I had after thoughts about how I handled it, the Lord showed me by their response that I did the right thing.
WoW!! Thank God for the Holy Ghost in leadership. I could not do it without Him.
P.S. I wanted you to know we are doing the curriculum,”Raising Up a Generation of God Chasers” that you and Tom Tenney did years ago. It is apropo for this time; just having to make a few adjustments.
when I receive criticism I try to ask 2 questions.
1. is it true
2. can I do anything about it.
Some things just are not true, However most criticism has at least a hint of truth to it.
If something is true i ask “Can I do anything about this?
Most things I can change however there might be some things about our self that we just cannot change. If we hang on to something we do because it has sentimental value or we are making excuses like “That’s just the way I am!” we might have room to grow. and probably need to change.
Great feedback Jerry.