I was listening to an internal podcast message by our movement's founder, Steve Murrell, on leaders who listen, and he shared an interesting story about the 2015 NBA Finals champion Golden State Warriors and how a twenty-eight-year-old special assistant might have been key to that championship.
The story was published in the Wall Street Journal and talked about Nick U'ren, the secretary and assistant of coach Steve Kerr, who proposed the crazy idea of going small against Lebron James and the Cavaliers by benching center Bogut and starting the shooting guard/small forward Andre Iguodala instead. It was crazy—but it worked.
What caught my attention, aside from the ingenious idea U'ren shared after watching the strategy of the San Antonio Spurs against Lebron James and the Heat the year before, was the humility and ability of the five-time champion and now head coach of the top seed Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr, to let his secretary teach him how to be a coach. The lesson we learn from this is the invaluable premium that listening is a major part of being a leader.
There's another much younger man in the Bible who was good at listening. His name was Samuel. The young boy would later go on to be the the advisor and prophet who would anoint one of the best politicians the world would ever knew: King David.
At a young age, Samuel had practiced and perfected the art of listening first to God. 1 Samuel 3:10 tells us, "And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, 'Samuel! Samuel!' And Samuel said, 'Speak, for your servant hears'" (ESV).
Often there is an emphasis put on the power of the words of a great and mighty leader, but what really sets a leader apart is whether he or she has an equal or even greater ability to hear out the thoughts, suggestions and ideas of other people.
Philippians 2:3 tells us this: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves" (ESV). What makes a good leader? Sure, a leader can be smart, charismatic and even talented, but if a leader is too smart, talented or charismatic to listen, they miss the point.
How are your listening skills as a leader, parent, spouse or Christian? Do you speak more than you should listen or do you easily consider others better than yourself and always give the benefit of the doubt that, maybe, others are be right and you could be wrong?
