The coxswain looks into the face of each rower. Individually, failure is the only option. Together, victory is possible. The challenge set before him is drawing the individual strength from each rower so that their energy, efforts, and, ultimately, hearts are aligned, unified, and raised to a higher plane. Finding that jet stream and sustaining altitude gracefully is not easy and forces the coxswain to know each one and their individual contribution to the team. One may be strong and can dig deep. One may have endurance and can stay at it consistently. Another may be all heart and can motivate with the stroke of an oar. Thus, each rower must be known by the leader.
However, not only must the coxswain know the rowers, but he must also align them so that they are one. This is a task that cannot be accomplished by autocratic expectancy. Instead, the coxswain strives to motivate each person and call on them individually to set each stroke in motion as a single unified stroke. Deep pulls through the water are not conducive to disconnected oars but are accomplished through the concert of strokes. Consequently, effective movement across the surface is not achieved by a single motivating call generally applied to all rowers but is from a discerning leader uniquely drawing out the strengths he knows reside in each one of them. Thus, each rower must be aligned by the leader.
Notwithstanding, the coxswain cannot assume victory because he knows and aligns his rowers; he must also press on to encourage them. This final aspect separates the crews that win and the crews that lose. It is from the heart where strength beyond measure may arise, and the coxswain knows that to encourage is to build hearts. A team may have all the power and all the stamina, but without heart, they will succumb to the pressures of competition, the challenges of the course, and perplexities within themselves. Thus, each rower must have a heart encouraged by the leader.
Being an encourager also requires the coxswain mind the course, the competition, and the approaching finish line. Encouragement must be more than a mere transfer of words to rowers, but a correlating and disseminating of words to each one in light of the stage and status of the course, the proximity and expression of the competition, and the nearness of the finish line. In other words, to be an effective encourager, the coxswain assimilates his knowledge of the rower, the course, the competition, and the finish line and speaks appropriately. When he does this, he applies directed, specific, sincere, kind, and intentional words that build up a heart such that it reaches beyond the threshold of its expectations. To encourage means to be a student of those who are following. To be a student means to have a heart that seeks to encourage hearts.
Thus, leadership requires heart, and the heart of the leader encourages other hearts.
How Does This Apply To Us Today?
- Know your people by spending time with them, and from that time asking good questions to know them more.
- Align your people by articulating clear direction and your nearness as that direction is sought.
- Encourage your people by correlating:
- The course–their journey of life,
- The competition–the wiles of sin within, without, and around,
- The finish line–life’s end, and speaking words that meet them where they are and lift them beyond their expectations.
“Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.”
1 Thessalonians 5:11
— June 12, 2023