How to Show Mercy When You Really Feel Like Firing Someone
Updated: Dec 27, 2020
There’s a lot of areas in my agency where my team can make costly mistakes. A project manager can miss a due task date and delay a project. A graphic designer can lose a major change and mess up a client’s marketing campaign. A developer can forget a major update, and an entire site can go down on a client for a few days.
When these mistakes can cost me a contract with a client, it makes my blood boil. My immidiate instinct is to raise my voice, blame, point fingers, and make the person feel the same pain I feel. I feel like FIRING THEM on the spot!
Yes, my mind goes to these places sometimes.
An error by someone on my team has cost me money and reputation points in the past. The scars of these past experiences have caused me to lash out at anyone that threatens my business and livelihood.
Showing Mercy in Business
As entrepreneurs will always be surrounded by people in some way, shape, or form. And these people will undoubtedly anger us at one point or another. People make mistakes. People don’t always follow instructions. People aren’t perfect, and when that imperfection affects a critical part of our business, we can’t help but put our defense mechanisms up.
We have many people that could do us wrong in business. Vendors can not follow through with what they promised. Contractors can delay projects by weeks if they make a mistake. Employees can have a lapse in judgment and do something hurtful. Partners can selfishly betray us. Clients can say hurtful things.
The great battle for us Godpreneurs isn’t avoiding sin, but instead, avoiding our sin in response to someone else’s sin. Our greatest struggle for holiness as Christian entrepreneurs is being able to be Christ-like, even when we’re wronged against in our business.
How do we become the type of Godpreneurs that can handle the wrongs against us in a way that builds our businesses and breaks us free from the anger that could be holding us back from more in our businesses?
God’s POV on Mercy
In the most famous preaching ever given on the planet, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount lays out the eight beatitudes, which are qualities of the people that enjoy special favor from God. I believe these qualities are the keys to unlocking the next levels of achievements in our businesses.
In the fifth beatitude, Jesus reminds of why mercy is so important for entrepreneurs to practice.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5:7 NIV)
Mercy for business owners means treating the people we do business with better than they deserve. A type of mercy is forgiveness, and so is helping someone we’re not obligated to help.
The reason Jesus says the merciful are blessed is that mercy is the entire reason for Christ’s incarnation, death, and Resurrection. It’s through Jesus that a business owner’s sins in business are forgiven, and he receives help by the gift of God’s spirit.
7 Practical Ways to Show Mercy Today
Mercy can be very practical to you, especially as the leader of people. You’re supposed to help others attain their outcomes, regardless of how you feel about them. When you help a client, who you may not even like and who wronged you in the past, you are showing mercy and being the light of Christ in that person’s life.
When you do this, you will be shown mercy.
Although mercy sometimes feels like you’re losing or giving up a favorable position, you could have rightly taken, showing it benefits the outcome as a whole as well as the other person.
Mercy is
Being patient with a partner’s differences
Helping employees around us that are hurting
Giving a vendor a second chance
Doing good to those clients who hurt us.
Being kind to competitors who offend us
Building bridges of love to prospects who can’t afford us
Valuing relationships of strategic alliances over the rules of the marketplace
When we Godpreneurs can create an environment of forgiveness, organizational performance improves. Why? Because people won’t feel like they walk on eggshells. When people are allowed to make mistakes, they take risks necessary to break through to innovations in business that will set the business apart.
So, who do you need to show mercy to this week?
A Prayer for More Mercy in Business
Father, thank you for Jesus and the mercy You demonstrated for us on the cross by giving us your one and only Son so that we could have a life with You. Draw Godpreneurs worldwide into a deeper understanding of Your mercy.