One Golden Rule

Kingdom Culture, Part Five

My guess is that someone read the last post in this series and thought about a boss they once had, or maybe it’s the boss they currently have, and shook their head in disagreement. They may have even thought something like this to themselves, But Angela was such a kind boss. She always looked out for me, invested in my career, and took the blame if our team didn’t hit its goals for the quarter.

Fair enough. There are some people who buck the trend. They model Christlike behavior with or without realizing it. But the fact that a rare boss like Angela stands out in your mind is a testament to two things: 1) Bosses like that are extremely rare; and 2) the way of the kingdom can have a powerful impact.

But what exactly is the way of the kingdom when it comes to living out our work lives? If you’re one of those guys who loves leadership books with numbers in the title, like The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership or The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, you’re going to be disappointed. There’s just one law to know, one rule to follow. It comes from the lips of Jesus: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

That’s it. One universal rule to change the way we work, lead, manage, and collaborate on the job: Do to others what you would have them do to you. It’s been called the Golden Rule, and for good reason. If you can live it out, you are one of the good guys. You will be the boss or coworker people look up to and remember fondly years later. You will be a blessing everywhere you go.

Jesus wasn’t talking specifically about work when He uttered the Golden Rule, but take note. He said the rule applied to “everything.” In other words, there is no sphere of life where doing for others what you’d want them to do for you will steer you wrong. But how many times have you heard someone say, after doing something cold and heartless, “It’s just business.” Well, sorry. Business doesn’t get a special exemption. You still have to be a decent human being when you go to work—and that goes double for followers of Jesus.

There are some who will undoubtedly say that the Golden Rule and capitalism are incompatible. Self-interest is the driving force behind capitalism; it’s the spark that gives it life. If we were to suddenly flip things, our businesses would come to a grinding halt. But that’s to misunderstand what Jesus is telling us. Because we care about our coworkers, our bosses, our employees, our customers, and yes, even our shareholders, a healthy profit is a good thing.

What our current business models do is twist things out of alignment. Your average CEO thinks about his own bank accounts first, then those of the company’s shareholders (for they have the power to remove him), then perhaps his customers—after all, he doesn’t want to alienate them entirely; he needs them to buy his company’s wares—and then he considers the employees, only as much as he must to avoid costly turnover.

Now, they will deny this up and down, because it’s a bad look. And while there are exceptions, this pattern has been observed again and again. It’s by design. A self-interested CEO will do the will of his company’s shareholders, and that means he will do whatever he can to generate ever-growing profit margins. This is all basic stuff, but it’s shortsighted.

In order to increase profits forever, a company must either raise prices (that’s bad for customers), lower the quality of their products (that’s bad for customers as well but also for the long-term health of the company), or get more out of fewer employees (that’s bad for those employees, and doubly bad for the ones who get fired). Of course, a company can keep expanding with new product offerings or it can try to expand its customer base—but both of those strategies take lots of time and capital, and are there’s no guarantee of success.

I hate to get into the micro-economic weeds on this, but stick with me for another minute or two, because Jesus’ way offers something better. When we practice the Golden Rule, we replace ever-increasing profits at the top or our priorities list with broad human flourishing. Rather than a few people winning, everyone does. Profits are still important, because you need them to keep the company operating, but they are not the ultimate goal.

To the believers in Philippi, Paul wrote:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Philippians 2:3–4)

There’s a benefit to living this way—the way of Jesus. It creates a healthy environment where we all thrive, especially as this ethic catches on and everyone lives it out. Capitalism is built on self-interest, and that’s not a bad thing. But being truly self-interested would mean looking past payday to the world we’re all creating together.

You may have heard that Henry Ford paid his factory works five dollars a day, an unheard of sum at the time. It seemed to fly in the face of commonsense business practices. But Henry Ford wanted his own employees to be able to afford to purchase one of the cars they were manufacturing. He did unto others what he would have wanted them to do for him. And in the end, everyone benefited. Employees were better off, Ford sold more cars, and competitors followed his example. No one lost. Imagine that!

Now, rumor is that Henry Ford’s five-dollars-a-day idea wasn’t really about elevating the financial situation of assembly line workers; it was actually about eliminating absences at work and keeping competitors from stealing his labor force. However, this just reinforces my point: Doing the right thing can be good for business, and even selfish people can accidentally stumble onto the way of Jesus every now and again.

And that’s where we’re going in the next post. We’ll discuss the beautiful design of the Golden Rule and how it allows everyone to win.

Check out my latest books:

The Unlikely Intrusion of Adams Klein (The TimeFall Trilogy, Part 1)

A Paintbrush for Joni: The True Story of Joni Eareckson Tada and the Savior Who Turns Tragedy into Joy

And if you’ve missed the previous posts in this series, you can check them out here:

“Who’s the Boss? (Kingdom Culture, Part One“

“The Price of Worldly Power (Kingdom Culture, Part Two)”

“When Your Boss Is a Slave Driver (Kingdom Culture, Part Three)”

“The Choice Before Us (Kingdom Culture, Part Four)”