Delegating
Place Responsibility on Others—Leading men should place re-
sponsibilities upon others, and allow them to plan and devise and
execute, so that they may obtain an experience. Give them a word of
counsel when necessary, but do not take away the work because you
think the brethren are making mistakes. May God pity the cause when
one man’s mind and one man’s plan is followed without question.
God would not be honored should such a state of things exist. All our
workers must have room to exercise their own judgment and discre-
tion. God has given men talents which He means that they should
use. He has given them minds, and He means that they should become
thinkers, and do their own thinking and planning, rather than depend
upon others to think for them.
I think I have laid out this matter many times before you, but I see
no change in your actions. We want every responsible man to drop
responsibilities upon others. Set others at work that will require them
to plan, and to use judgment. Do not educate them to rely upon your
judgment. Young men must be trained up to be thinkers. My brethren,
do not for a moment think that your way is perfection, and that those
who are connected with you must be your shadows, must echo your
words, repeat your ideas, and execute your plans.—
Testimonies to
Ministers and Gospel Workers, 302, 303
.
Look to God Not Man—I had a long talk with Brother Bell. I
told him many things. I tried to place before him where everyone of
our leading men had made a mistake and hindered the work they were
so desirous to advance. Each one thought that he was the very one
who must bear all the responsibilities, and they spread over too much
ground and failed to educate others to think, to act, to be care-takers,
to lift burdens, because they gave them no chance.
I told him it was not God’s plan to have it thus. He had done this
way and gathered upon himself a mass of burdens he had no strength
to carry and he could not do justice to anything. God had given to
every man his work, according to each man’s ability, and when one
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