SCRIPTURE: “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” (Psalm 19:13 KJV)
QUOTE: “Every time we make assumptions about what other people feel, do or think, we imprison them and us in a separate reality.” ―Franco Santoro
NOTE:
Leaders are flesh and blood and are as susceptible to slip-ups as anyone can be in an organization. Assumptions can be very expensive and leaders have high proclivity for it. The elevated position of a leader in any organization usually attracts deference and honour, and this lures leaders to thinking themselves more highly than they ought to. Where this is not intentionally checked, it leaves the leader operating with lots of blind angles and costly assumptions, e.g. “The Leader must know it all.” Two or more sane heads are always better than one. Decisions turn out well when all perspectives of a matter are very well examined and contributions made by all concerned. Where it becomes usual for a leader to unilaterally decide on virtually all matters, it more often leaves him/her standing alone and dry with the attendant consequences when the decisions do not turn out well.
ILLUSTRATION:
“But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.” 2 Kings 5:11-12 KJV
REFLECTION:
What costly assumptions are you living with?
TWO YEAR BIBLE READING: Isaiah 14: 28 – 17: 14, Proverbs 8: 1 – 36