So you're leading a team or small group of people, now what?  Or you feel called to lead in your school, your work, your community, the church, society, government….  How do you get there?

Leadership is exciting.  The dictionary defines leadership as the ability to guide, direct, or influence people.  Leaders influence people.  Leaders make things happen.  People look to leaders.  People follow leaders.  Now lets not kid ourselves leadership is also a little scary. What happens if people don’t follow?  I might make a wrong call.  But that is all part of the buzz, the excitement, the joy of leading.  Leaders change nations….  Socrates, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Wellington, Washington, Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Bevan, Shackleton, , Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Richard Branson, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Anita Roddick.  Leaders move us to the next level.

So you’ve tasted something of leadership, and you want more, but what’s the secret?  How do I influence, how do I become a great leader whatever the setting – a leader of my life, my family, in my place of work or study, my community, my town, or my nation…….

The answer is both complex and simple.  Forests have been sacrificed!  Google ‘leadership’ and it returns “Results 1 - 10 of about 166,000,000 for leadership”, about – Google couldn’t even count the hits!  I searched the ‘books’ on Amazon and got 23,716 Results.  There is a lot of material, thought, theory, opinion and comment out there!  It’s complex, yet it’s also simple.

I’ve read a lot of books and articles on leadership (not the 23,716 on Amazon granted, but quite a few), I’ve talked to leaders, to those that study leaders, even taught on leadership.  I’ve even done leadership, small group, church, projects and organisations.  One or two things I’ve learnt on my own journey thus far stand out to me.  The first is from guy called Jim Collins[i]…

Jim studied some of the highest performing companies over a fifteen year period and was shocked that the sort of leadership he found was not big personalities’ who make headlines and become celebrities, but rather men and women who were self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy yet at the same time fiercely determined with ambition first and foremost for the institution they led, not themselves.

Humble, selfless, fierce determination.  Remind you of anyone?

Jesus.

Be like Jesus…. Simple.

Simple, but complex….  Lets move it on a stage then, here’s another thought that hit me from the writer of Hebrews.

“Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”[ii]
Consider the way of life of godly leaders that have gone before.  Dr J Robert Clinton[iii] did exactly that in his writings and research, he considered A.W. Tozer, Watchman Nee, Hudson Taylor, D.L. Moody, George Mueller, Amy Carmichael, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Joseph, David, Daniel, Elijah, Jeremiah, Paul, Peter, to name a few.  What did he conclude?

Firstly he talked about ‘Sovereign Foundations’, by this he means that God has been preparing you for leadership since before you were born, ‘through family, environment, and historical events’ whether they were godly influences or not…. He was.  If you don’t see how all the pieces of your past fit together in preparing you for leadership, ask God to help you see it, to understand. Talk to others.  As he shows you, you will come to a deeper appreciation of His sovereignty and power.

It begins before birth.  Have a read of Psalm 139.

Secondly he talked about ‘inner life growth’ where we learn about ‘the importance of praying and hearing God…. grow[ing] in discernment, understanding, and obedience…’.  God tests us in this phase.  Its easy to ignore these early tests but they are ‘crucial experiences that God used to prepare the leader for the next steps of leadership’.  God develops character.

He checks our integrity (have a read of Daniel 1v8-21)

He checks our obedience (have a read of Genesis 22)

He checks ability to receive truth from God (have a read of 1 Sam 3v1-10 and then the summary in v 19-21)

Sometimes He checks combinations of the three.  Has the Father been testing you, in order to grow your character?  Which of the three categories does it fall into?  Have you learnt what the Father has been trying to teach you in this season?  It’s often hard to see what the lessons are when you are in the middle of them.  Pray, ask for clarity.  Ask for wisdom.  Journal.  Talk with friends and leaders.  Pray with them.

But what if I fail?  What if I don’t pass the test?  Am I on the junk heap forever?

Grace & Mercy.

Grace is getting what we don’t deserve and Mercy is not getting what we do deserve.

He lets us try again.  And again.  And again if necessary.  He wants us to move on but the lessons are so important they shouldn’t be skipped.

Let me share one other practical thought from the man himself, leadership personified:

“Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."[iv]

Leaders serve.  Enough said… for now.

Finally, you may have noticed the list of leaders at the start were not all ‘good’.  Here’s another thought from Os Guinness, author, international speaker, thinker and cultural critic, at the turn of the millennium :

“Whereas a combination of faith, character, and virtue was the rock on which traditional leadership was founded, each of these components has crumbled in the twentieth century”

Faith, character and virtue.

Don’t dodge the foundational lessons of leadership.  It’s a powerful thing, I suppose like a gun or a sword which in the wrong hands brings devastation but in the right hands peace, and freedom.

[i] Jim Collins, Good to Great.  2001.  Random House.

[ii] Hebrews 13:7-8.  NAB.

[iii] Dr J Robert Clinton.  The Making of a Leader.  1988.  Navpress

[iv] Mark 10 v 42 – 45.  NIV

[v] Character Counts:  Leadership Qualities in Washington, Wilberforce, Lincoln and Solzhenitsyn.  1999. The Trinity Forum.