I think any good leader would admit that those two words can be the hardest to hear and to say. As an executive for many years, I have been on both the giving and receiving end of that power packed statement. Now mind you, I have never said them or heard them said with the vim and vigor that Trump does, but they still sting in their many varieties.... you are fired, you are terminated, you are no longer right for this position, we've eliminated your position, your job is unfunded this year...ouch.
On the giving side of this equation, I can tell you that I almost developed ulcers when I first had to terminate an employee! I was not one who was comfortable with confrontation, so that made it doubly difficult. As I learned over the years...it never got easy. I thank God for that fact. I figured if it ever got easy, something was drastically wrong. Don't misunderstand...there are times that terminating someone is certainly needed. As an Administrator in a long term care facility, I will tell you that when I had concrete evidence that a resident was being abused, I was more than happy to remove those type of people from my building and to report them to the Department of Professional Regs. If you don't have the patience to work with the elderly, DO NOT work in a nursing home...just sayin'. Fortunately, those times were very few and far between!! But there were those times that a termination was warranted due to repetitive failure to comply with policies that left me wondering what more I could have done to help them be successful. One of my greatest strengths was also a great weakness in this area... I can tend to hold onto a relationship, even a bad one, longer than prudent. Hopefully, that allowed me to be more than fair... I am sure not everyone saw it that way!
On the receiving side, those words can be a bitter pill to swallow, especially if your self worth is tied into what you do for a living. That was the case for me. My biggest fear up to that point was being fired. I exchanged the ideology of excellence for perfection, which started the downward spiral of trying to control every aspect and every person. While I believe that there was nothing I could have done differently at the time to make the situation better, I did learn a lot from that experience such as:
- There is wisdom in waiting on God. I was entirely too young to manage a multi million dollar business and manage 70+ people. When God's word says not to choose a person to lead who is a relative new believer, there is much wisdom in that truth - especially in the business world! There is something to be said for life experiences, people skills, basic maturity, etc. Just because I had been very successful in marketing and social services DID NOT translate to being ready to run the entire show. I did what I wanted in spite of God's admonishment to wait. And I suffered the consequences...
- There are some hills worth dying on. The company I worked for at the time was not resident focused, but bottom line focused. I am a business woman and I believe in being a good steward of the funds for which I am responsible. However, when the choice is between keeping the residents safe and healthy, or lining the pockets of the owners...well, residents will always come first. No apologies for that. I knew when I staked the flag on that hill that I was writing my own eulogy. Guess what? I went on to work for another company, and then had the privilege of managing the best home in Western Illinois for almost 12 years. Them? Company went bankrupt.
- I now know what I will and will not accept for me. For some weird reason, I think somewhere down deep I thought I deserved to suffer because of manipulating the circumstances in getting the job. Maybe I did, or maybe those were just the natural consequences of not waiting on God, I don't know. However, I looked back on those two and half years, the battles with the company to do the right thing, the promises unfulfilled, the stress and lack of sleep I endured that almost robbed me of my health, and I promised myself that I would NEVER allow that again...whether it be a job, a ministry, a relationship. I see many young women making that same mistake of settling instead of setting standards, and it honestly breaks my heart.
- God is first. This wasn't the truth in my life during this period. My career was my god, and what a miserable deity it was! It took God allowing the very thing I was so fearful of happening to come to fruition to make me see that truth. Honestly, it took a few years after to finally get that kind of straight, but the Lord is patient because He saw growth and knew I'd finally get it! If these words strike a chord in you, may I offer some counsel? Get this right as soon as possible and don't be the fool I was for too long in this area! There is no job, no ministry, no relationship, NOTHING that can be as fulfilling as a rightly aligned relationship with the Lord.
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