You Can't Manufacture This (And It's Priceless!)

“I'll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty.”

Samuel Goldwyn, U.S. Film Producer

I often share with those I'm coaching about loyalty.

In job coaching we talk about hard skills vs. soft skills. Things like knowing Microsoft Office or how to operate a forklift would be a hard skill. Things like honesty and loyalty are soft skills.

It really doesn't matter how skilled you are, if you aren't loyal nothing else matters.

I can teach someone to do a lot of manual skills. Matter of fact I could instruct someone who isn't even a Christian how to present the Bible in a compelling way. But I can't manufacture a pure heart.



One person who served with me in church ministry couldn't accomplish a lot of basic hard skills when they began, but I felt they had a pure heart. That was proven true. They learned hard skills in time, but I came to see their greatest value was their loyal heart. 

We're still close today. If they called me to ask any favor I'd try to move heaven and earth to do it. So far nothing they've asked has required that. But God's knows I'd try! I've stayed up late to write something on their behalf. Been willing to help them while I was on vacation. Called people to ask for special favors for them. Given resources and recommendations. They can count on that and more for the duration of my life. It's the least I can do in appreciation for the manner in which they served all the way through. (That's very important: all the way. Not part of the time.  And not up til' the end when they went off the rails.) 

There are former leaders I've served who I can count on that way too. 

Cornelia Bernard Henderson is one of the first people I worked for and I can still remember the day she left the company we worked for, after there was a downsizing. I was devastated, standing in her office crying my eyes out. Working for Neil was demanding. Everybody couldn't handle it, but I was fiercely loyal to her. I helped her pack up her office, crying with every single box. I even took the name plate off of her door and still have it in a keepsake box today. (She didn't want it.) Truth be told I could still call Neil today, 25 years later, and ask for her advice or a favor.


Loyalty. 
You can't manufacture it and it's priceless!

Lack of loyalty - even if justified, even if you happen to be right, aligns you with the purposes of the enemy rather than God. (Consider David's good example, with Saul.) Whether working in a company or serving in a church, Kingdom principles still apply. We put ourselves in a spiritual dangerous place when we operate out of the enemy's playbook rather than God's.

Napolean once said that, "Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life."

Not only that but there's just no excuse for it.
No justification, biblically or otherwise.  
Be loyal, or let someone else get in position who can be. 

*Three great books to read about this: Undercover and The Bait of Satan by John Bevere, and A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards.