More from Sunday

It strikes me that I did not talk about one area that is often referred to as a solitary place. When people who are in leadership get together it is common for them to use such phrases as, "it's lonely at the top, that's why we get the big bucks, or I wasn't hired to be their friend."
I agree with John Maxwell, and many other authors, who in his book "leadership gold" suggests that if it's lonely at the top the leader's doing something wrong. However, in every organization (whether it's organic such as the church or not) there is by default one person to whom everyone looks to in the event of major decisions or failures. In that sense, it can be lonely at the top.
I've never felt comfortable passing blame, whether deserved or otherwise, to those who serve under my leadership. I have known few good leaders who would disagree. Maybe this is where we find the answer to the age-old question (well as old as my leadership), "why don't leaders delegate more?" It is not that leaders delegate less it is that the delegates wait on the leader for the critical decision which causes the team to miss a critical window of opportunity.
The leader is left in the lurch -- the delegate feels responsible and yet somehow let down-- and the team sees the whole situation is a failure.
And so the good leader continues to fail and along the way he finds other good leaders going to learn from their failure.