Face it

Acts 18:19 They arrived at Ephesus,where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam once told about his first SLV rocket launch into the space in August 1979, Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. He was the project director and the chairman was Prof. Satish Dhawan.  In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure. There was a press conference that evening where journalists from all over the world were present. Instead of sending Dr. Kalam to address the press, Prof. Satish Dhawan himself went ahead and faced the questions and took the failure on himself.

The next year, in July 1980, they tried again to launch the satellite — and this time they succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called Dr. Kalam aside and told him, “You conduct the press conference today.” It’s a very important leadership lesson, When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team.

When Apostle Paul went to Ephesus to first reach out to the jews and then to the gentiles, he was up for it. The jews were already causing a lot of uproar all over. So he went alone to face their questions and left Aquila and Priscilla behind. He showed the quality of a great leader and that of a responsible one.

Often times we are ready to enjoy the success and bask in glory of the moment. But several times when things go wrong, we are the first to put the blame on others and wash off our hands. Well that’s not done. Let’s be leaders in true sense. we need to have the courage to face it.

Stanley Thomas Isac

Stanley is serving as the Pastor of Crossway Church in New Delhi, he can be reached at Stanleytisac@gmail.com