Leading in the Small

By Doug Franklin March 25, 2011

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” Luke 16:10

This verse has been sticking out to me a lot lately, so this entry is difficult to write. It’s been so apparent in my own life and in the lives of others around me. When we are given small tasks by our leaders, and we perform them with great excellence, we are seen as diligent and hardworking, able to take on greater responsibility. If we regard the small tasks as not worth our time, our leaders form negative opinions about us. Obviously we all know this is true, but do we take it seriously enough to change our behavior? When we are not leading well in the small tasks, we communicate several things:

1. We only care about our own concerns

When we don’t perform small tasks with great excellence, we are saying the small tasks are not worth our time. We don’t really care about anything unless we are personally invested in it or it was our idea.

2. We don’t have a large perspective

Leading well in the small tasks shows others we understand our small contributions lend themselves to the greater mission. When we don’t perform small tasks well, we’re communicating that we are not seeing the job with a large perspective. This narrow focus on doing only the things we care about shows we do not respect the grander mission.

3. We don’t respect our leaders

When our leaders give us an assignment and we perform it with excellence, it communicates that we respect them. When we disregard a task or consider it meaningless, we tell our leaders we don’t respect them. Our leaders walk away from our unfinished task or our half-hearted attempt wondering if the trust they put in us was deserved.