By Our Fruits Will We Be Judged

A spiritual leader recently spoke about how we will ultimately be judged – by our fruits, i.e., what we bring forth to our world – what we do and what we fail to do……for others.

Whatever our faith, I believe we are here on earth to love our Lord and to love and serve others.

Let’s think about this relative to business. In today’s world, we very likely spend most of our time working, be it in our offices, traveling, commuting, and working from home. So, how we act, interact, what we do, fail to do, and what we say and how we say it in our work matters, matters greatly in how we will be judged.

What are our fruits in our work? Well, let’s first think about our responsibilities. Aren’t they to help our team members and other colleagues learn, grow and succeed? Yes, surely if we are a manager, a leader, those are our responsibilities. We are responsible to and for our people!

We certainly must develop and maintain helpful working relationships with our team members and other colleagues, with everyone. It is their responsibility as well. We are equally responsible. Yet, as a leader, we should initiate conversations to assure we have solid working relationships so our people flourish and succeed.

Our fruit certainly includes our conversations, as conversations are the work of a leader!

Genuine conversations are gifts, e.g., when we come around our desk to be alongside a person or go to another person’s office or share over coffee. They are two-way conversations, in fact asking questions and listening to understand and learn. It’s “How are you doing?” “What is on your mind?” “How can I help?” “What advice do you have for me?”

These are samples of questions which enable us to help our people feel appreciated and heard and for us to gain their helpful ideas. They are a win/win.

Our satisfaction and success should come from the satisfaction and success of our team members.

Business is such a big part of our lives. Yet, if our work is about us, how much money we make, our title, our prestige, we’re missing the mark. This is not how we want our life will be judged.

Our work can be extremely important to our lives – if we genuinely care about and serve our people, encouraging, teaching, mentoring, and coaching them to develop, to reach their true potential and to enjoy their work, feel good about themselves and be successful.

Let’s think about our legacy, what we mean to our colleagues. Hopefully, what matters most to us is how we help others develop and contribute to their wellbeing. That should be the fruit we hope to be judged on.