Christian Living

Read the series so far.

Parents, spouses, teachers, team leaders, ministry leaders, and others are often not content with gaining short-term outward compliance from those in their care. They understand that a deeper and more enduring understanding is better, whenever that’s achievable. It follows that they should reach early and often for the tool of persuasion.

But persuasion is sometimes ill suited for the task at hand. At least four situations call for a different approach, either foregoing a persuasive effort to begin with or setting it aside for another day—or possibly tabling it indefinitely for a particular audience.

Though many of us don’t think of ourselves as leaders, we all find ourselves in situations where we’re responsible to some extent for “getting other people to do things” (or stop doing things). In that sense, we’re all leaders occasionally.

Previously, I introduced three primary tools leaders have at their disposal (coercion, persuasion, and influence), overviewed how the three differ, and explored some ways we tend to use one of them—coercion—badly (with self-defeating consequences).

Paul’s letter to Philemon draws our attention to the second tool—persuasion—and even a brief look reveals a great deal about what persuasion is, how it works, and why we should try to get better at it.