I remember being told once that if we are a leader we will often cause frustration in others. Isn’t that an encouraging introduction?

Hopefully we will cause lots of other positive emotions as well, but unfortunately I have found this statement to be true. You see, to lead people is to make decisions for people without always having the opportunity to ask those people their opinion about those decisions. The thing about decisions is that there are way more right decisions and way less wrong decisions than I would like to admit. What is a correct decision for one person or people group is quite often not the correct decision for another person or group.

Therefore there is a high likelihood that many decisions we will make will displease someone. Fun times! As we all know when we displease people we can offer cause frustration in them. I’ve come to realise that even the most gifted leaders will frustrate someone. Their high leadership skill may garner higher trust from their team, and they may be able to recover quicker from the decision, but they can’t avoid causing frustration completely.

All of that is a preambleto why I was super shocked at a small verse I read today from the book of 2 Samuel in the bible. At this stage Saul has died and David is king, but there is an ongoing war between the two groups. One story in this chapter tells of how David responds to an incident that happened. This is the verse that caught me;

All the people took note and were pleased; indeed, everything the king did pleased them. 2 Samuel 3:36

ALL the people and EVERYTHING the king did pleased them! I love this. Of course from reading lots about Davids life I know that this statement wasn’t always true of him but…… if we’ve seen it once it is possible!!