Thursday, December 1, 2011

Leadership Lessons From Jesus - Part 5

Priorities

Leaders must focus on what’s important.  You have probably heard it said many times,  “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”  This may be an old cliche but it speaks volumes to the leader.  Another way of saying this is; “First thing first.”  Life is filled with things that will distract you from what’s most  important.  Sometimes we can be distracted by good things as well.  In other words,  it’s not so much doing the wrong things that mess up our lives as it is doing too many good things. Sometimes the good things are  not necessarily the best things.

In his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell says that good leaders understand The Law of Priorities which says, “Leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment.”  Maxwell went on to say that leaders never advance to a point where they no longer need to prioritize.  Nevertheless, many leaders never practice the discipline of prioritizing.  He list three reasons for this:

1. When we are busy we believe we are accomplishing something.
2. Prioritizing requires leaders to continually think ahead.
3. Prioritizing causes us to do things that are uncomfortable and sometimes painful.

Jesus was a master of keeping His focus on the main thing.  He refused to be distracted. Luke 9:51 says, “When the days were coming to a close for Him to be taken up, He determined to journey to Jerusalem.”  He headed toward Jerusalem to die on the cross for us.  He did it with an iron will.  He would not let anything distract him from what was important.

Your life has incredible potential.  But that potential won’t be realized until you decide what’s really important and then prioritize your time, talent, money, and energy so that you keep what’s really important the main thing.

What are your top five priorities?  What do you need to do today to make sure that you keep focused on those priorities?