Leadership: The Top 5 Success Principles of JobSample

5. No Abuse of Resources

Job’s leadership and business success were largely based on an agricultural enterprise. Then, as now, farmers have a choice on how hard to work the land, whether to plant only the most valuable crops year after year or to rotate crops and rest the land so that it may recover.

Today, most of us do not work the land, but we do use other resources, both human and natural, to complete our work. As a leader, you have a choice on how hard to press down on your people and your suppliers, and how to strike a balance between profit and care of creation.

Job faced the same challenges in his day – and look at his leadership and business principle here:

If my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants… – Job 31:38-39

Job’s final Top 5 principle (with 3 verses dedicated to it) is not to abuse the resources available to him or to break the spirit of those working at any level lower down in his organization. In saying this, Job recognizes a responsibility to care for resources made available to him, not just to maximize his return.

Corporate economics today are rather different, encouraging and rewarding leaders who maximize profits and return on investment. Leaders who put priority on caring for the natural and human resources available to them often find themselves in opposition to shareholders, board members, or senior management.

But Job’s principle is God’s principle too:

Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a [local citizen] or a foreigner… – Deuteronomy 24:14

and,

Masters [Leaders], provide your slaves [employees] with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. – Colossians 4:1

In case it wasn’t clear enough, James the brother of Jesus adds this as a warning for the wealthy and successful leader:

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. … The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves as in a day of feasting. – James 5:1,4-5

Job’s final principle is to care for the resources entrusted to your leadership, especially when those resources have little or no voice in your decision-making.

Reflection / Application

1. Inventory the resources entrusted to your leadership and/or management. How do you apply this principle of Job to those?
2. The structures and environment we live and work in suggest we extract maximum benefit from the resources provided. Is that suggestion in conflict with your faith? How?
3. Job seems to care for everyone and everything, including the land and the lowest of workers. What’s the lesson for you in this today?