Leadership is Relationship

As part of my requirements for MBA, I had to interview a person of leadership. And I decided to interview Pastor Joey Bonifacio because I was curious how he could be so busy traveling and checking up on the churches they had planted all over Asia, be the Senior Pastor of a church with around twelve thousand attendees, and not seem to be stressed about it. Well, he and his kind secretary managed to squeeze me in his busy schedule. :) Pastor Joey didn't seem very comfortable answering my questions, though. But nonetheless, I got a lot of valuable insights from that interview. And I'm very thankful he agreed to let me interview him.

In one sentence, his view on leadership is this: Leadership is a relationship. It is not all about hard work and just trying hard. It's about how you deal with people around you. And it's also about people you know. A leader doesn't have to know everything. But he has to know when he needs help, and know who to approach when he does. It is not about the number of economics degrees you have. It's about the economists you know. Because people will give you insights. People will give you advice. And people can be specialists in their own fields.

VALUE
In his view, leadership is not learned in a classroom. You don't go around looking to be a leader. You are called to it. And you're given grace to do it. With each of my question, he seemed to be telling me that I was missing the point. I asked how he motivated his people. He said he didn't. I asked him what his struggles were in the leadership. He said he didn't have any.

He spoke of value. What was valuable to your people? Do you provide that which is valuable to them? Why are they working for your company? Is it because of money? Because if it is, then don't be surprised if they leave you when a better-paying job comes along. Is it because of what your company stands for? Then in that case, as long as you stick to what you believe in, they will stay with you. And they will give you their best because they're not doing this out of fear or obligation. They're doing it because they want to, and they believe in what they do.

Leadership, he said, was not about trying to get people to do what you want them to do. It was about finding people whose values align with yours. If you find people on the right lane, everything is easy.

INFLUENCES
I asked about his influences. And they were the people around him that he had a relationship with: the other pastors, his parents, his mentors. There was not one particular person that molded him to be the type of leader that he was. And also, there was not one particular instance in his past that made him what he was. It was not about the big things. It was the constant interaction, the modeling, the conversations that made him what he was today. Again, it was the relationships he kept.

LEADERSHIP TODAY AND HIS ADVICE
Times are changing. Today, information is sent out very easily. With social media, it's so easy to share information. But it is also very easy for your reputation to get destroyed. If someone uploads a compromising video of you on YouTube, it would spread so fast, and the damage done to one's reputation would be very difficult to repair.

Pastor Joey thought this a good thing, though. And his advice to people in leadership is this: Be transparent. In other words, have integrity. Be the same before all people. Say only what you mean. And when you say you'd do something, do it.