In this Bible and Business video series on the eight “A’s” that kill healthy, business partnerships, Bill English, Publisher of Bible and Business, explores the eighth “A”: Autocrat. You can watch the companion video on the Bible and Business channel. Download the series slides.
[00:00:18.540] – Bill English
Music and welcome back. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. You know, I run my site, Bible and Business for Christian business owners, for owners who are serious about integrating their role as a Christian business owner with their Christian faith. I write and really minister to owners who are serious about wanting to understand what the Bible has to say about their stewardship role before the Lord. So if you’re a Christian and you own a business, and you really want God’s best for you and your business, then my teaching and my site is for you.
[00:01:00.030] – Bill English
I’m not a prosperity gospel guy. I don’t think that God blesses us merely with money. He sometimes does, but most of the time, he just wants us to be faithful to Him in furthering his kingdom in the marketplace. So you won’t find on my site a bunch of articles about the biblical secrets for business success or the million dollar idea that’s going to propel you into wealth and fortune that’s really, I don’t think all that important to the Lord, quite frankly. And those who pedal in that stuff, I think, are close to heresy, quite frankly.
[00:01:45.190] – Bill English
Really what the Lord is after is our faithfulness. He’s after our hearts. And he wants us to be good stewards of that which he entrusts to us. You know, if the widow who gave two mites gave more than all the rich people, then there’s something about wealth that we don’t understand if we think that the wealthy God has blessed and the poor God has not blessed. So all that to say, the Bible and Business is a biblically based Christian, dare I say, evangelical site for Christian business owners.
[00:02:20.440] – Bill English
And so, if you want to know about what the Bible has to say about owning a business, then I invite you to become involved@bibleandbusiness.com. The content for today is on being an autocrat or autocratic-ness, if I can put it that way. This is the last in my series on the eight A’s that kill healthy partnerships. And all of this content, except for the last episode in this one, comes from my book, a Christian Theology of Business Ownership an Introduction for Christian Entrepreneurs and what the Bible Says About Owning a Business. The abridged version, the shorter version, is called what the Bible Says about Owning a Business.
[00:03:03.690] – Bill English
You can pick up both of these books at Amazon, along with another book that I’ve written called Biblical Wisdom for Business Leaders. But today, we’re going to be looking at the characteristic of someone who’s an autocrat, someone who’s domineering and overbearing. And I’ll get into that in just a minute. But before I get started here today, what I’d like to do is to ask you to head over to Bibleandbusiness.com, check out my site and read some of the articles and listen to some of the podcasts. And if you’d like to, you can download the slides for this and other videos in PDF format from Bible and Business.com.
[00:03:46.180] – Bill English
And I’ll also ask that you subscribe to this YouTube channel and that you sign up for my newsletter, which, if it goes out every other month that’s a lot for me. So I’m not going to be flooding your inbox if you sign up for my newsletter. So I just ask that you check out Bible and Business.com. Okay, so today, we are looking at what it is to be an autocrat, and that’s really our topic of conversation. This is the 8th the 8th way that healthy partnerships can be killed or at least significantly injured, very much harmed if one of the partners becomes autocratic.
[00:04:26.160] – Bill English
Okay, and what is that? Well, an autocrat is a person who thinks that they have absolute authority in a particular area. They kind of in a wildlife terminology, they pee on all four corners of what they think is theirs and they don’t let anybody in. They’re very territorial. They’re often highly opinionated and they’re stubborn and they’re usually crazy smart and highly talented people.
[00:04:52.740] – Bill English
And because they are really talented in one area, they think they’re talented in all areas when in reality they’re not. They’re usually however, right. These people, they’re opinionated and stubborn but they’re often right too. And if you sit back you think, yeah, I can see how they land, where they land and I would tend to agree with them. But the way that they interact with others usually drives others away, drives other people crazy and the way that they interact really puts people off.
[00:05:27.490] – Bill English
So here’s just some notes for us to look at. First of all, these people can be trusted to get stuff done by their bosses or if they’re a partner, by their partners. But they may be hated by those that they manage. And the partners may look the other way because this autocratic partner brings so much value to the table that they tend to look the other way when they violate core values or they drive their staff crazy. They prefer, I’ve heard people like this say they prefer to butt heads and they prefer to have conflict and dissension and friction because that’s when they think they as a team get better decisions.
[00:06:14.470] – Bill English
That’s when they land in a better place than have they not butted heads or not had the friction. And so you just need to know that about them. They don’t really care that much about their reputation, at least on the outward appearances. They won’t appear to care much for their reputation and they will not often care about feelings. In the heat of the moment, what you feel will be very much secondary to them.
[00:06:40.830] – Bill English
And so these can be difficult partners to have in any partnership. Now you might want to ask yourself how does an autocrat harm a partnership? Well one is that they’re going to have outsized influence relative to their vote in the partnership. Let’s say they’re six partners and they’re one of six. They may have one vote, but they’ll have outsized influence relative to their vote.
[00:07:04.920] – Bill English
Secondly, I think they’re just going to drive the other partners crazy sometimes, especially if they’re autocratic with other partners where they think that, you know what, I’m right and you all are wrong and we’re just going to do things my way and I’m going to be stubborn and I know I’m right and you all are eventually going to come around to my way of thinking. That type of thing, it just, it’s going to wear partners out. The value that they add might be significant to your partnership, but they probably, if you’re honest with yourself, they violate your core values from time to time. You’ll find it’s nearly impossible to collaborate with them without them being in control of something or even most of a project. And I think partnerships with highly autocratic people tend to end usually due to the other partners becoming fatigued and just withdrawing and just finding a way out and they go do something else and they might part on good terms.
[00:08:04.320] – Bill English
They may not part on good terms. But the other partners become fatigued because the autocrats personality is so draining. It just drains the life out of you over time. So an autocrat is a person who thinks they have absolute authority. They’re often highly opinionated and stubborn and they’re often right when it comes right down to it.
[00:08:28.530] – Bill English
But they can be draining personalities and just drain the life out of their partners and the life out of the partnership. The way that they interact often drives others away. And again, the way that autocraticness harms partnerships is that it just fatigues the other partners and they usually kind of fade away or they just find socially acceptable reasons to leave the partnership and move on. So if you have an autocrat in your partnership, you need to really think about, you really need to think about how long you want to be in that partnership, how much energy you want to put into that person before you decide that it’s time to kind of pack up and find greener pastures, so to speak. Alright, I want to thank you for joining me today.
[00:09:22.750] – Bill English
This is a shorter video than what they normally are, but thank you for joining me today. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. The next series that we’re going to get into is Giving and Receiving Advice. It comes from chapter five in my Christian Theology of Business Ownership book and I’m looking forward to diving into that whole subject of how does a business owner receive advice? Who do they go to for advice and why?
[00:09:50.580] – Bill English
Receiving advice and sometimes giving advice is so biblical and so strategic to the success of your own business. So until we meet again, thank you for joining me. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. I trust that you’ll go out and make it a great day. Take care.