Good leadership vs. Godly leadership

We must cultivate an others-focused value in ourselves if we want to develop godly leadership.

If influence is a measure of our capacity to shape our culture and the people around us, and leadership is a measure of how we use that capacity, then we need one more qualifier in order to determine the overall value of our leadership:  We need to know what it is that we should use be using that influence for.

A person who has some amount of influence with the people in their world but does nothing with it is a poor leader and a poor steward.  Another who has some amount of influence with the people in their world and uses it to promote chaos and disruption might be a great and effective leader, but their leadership won’t increase the Master’s profit.

What makes the difference between a good leader and a godly one? 

Good leadership simply requires us to make use of the capacity we’ve been given to influence others.  Godly leadership requires us to use it for a specific purpose.  Jesus himself left us with instructions about what this purpose was.  You know these instructions well:

“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life…” (Matthew 28:19a, MSG)

The Great Commission makes it clear that God’s desire is for us to use our influence to train people in the way of Christ-likeness.  Godly leadership, then, means using our influence to spur others on towards being formed in the image of Christ.  Developing that kind of leadership requires us to make an intentional choice to use our influence to serve someone other than ourselves.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2: 3-4)

Godly leadership isn’t about native ability, raw potential, charisma, tenacity or drive.  It’s about intentionally using our influence to serve others.  Those who exhibit godly leadership seek to maintain an “others-focused” state of mind.  They consider the needs of others before the needs of self.  They are aware that their actions impact those around them, and they intentionally choose to see that impact as more important than their own interests.

The Apostle Paul articulated this concept beautifully in his exhortation to the church at Corinth: “I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life.” (I Cor. 9:22, MSG, emphasis added.)  Paul had influence among people, and he intentionally used it to serve them in order to spur them on towards Christ-likeness.

But outward actions alone do not define godly leadership.  We can force ourselves to act in a way that isn’t true to what we value or believe, but we know that God does not look at the outward appearance – he looks at the heart (see I Samuel 16:7.) 

Our actions flow from our hearts, our beliefs and values.  Godly leadership must therefore begin not with our outward actions, but with our inward attitudes.  As Paul goes on to say in Philippians 2: 

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
        did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
        taking the very nature of a servant…  (vv 5-7)

God himself came to the earth to serve the ones that He created.  Motivated by love, His purpose for serving us was so that we might be restored to fellowship with Him.  We who seek to be formed in his image should do likewise.  Our attitude should be the same as his: others-focused. 

We must cultivate an others-focused value in ourselves if we want to develop godly leadership. 

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Week 3 reflection questions:

1.       Our definition this week equates godly leadership with using our influence to spur others on towards being formed in the image of Christ.  We can sum this up in the term disciple-making – the task Jesus commissioned us to.  Is this something that you currently have a passion for?

a.       If not, do you think it’s something you should be asking God to grow a passion for in you?

2.       What are some common ways that we tend to look out for our own interests at the expense of the interests of others?  In what situations do you find it more natural to serve yourself first?

3.       List some situations in which it’s easy to overlook the impact your actions can have on others.

4.       What steps do you need to take to cultivate an others-focus?  How can you ensure that this is more than just an outward action with no associated change in your heart?

This week’s definition:

GODLY LEADERSHIP = using our influence to spur others on towards being formed in the image of Christ. 

This week’s quote: 

“We must cultivate an others-focused value in ourselves if we want to develop godly leadership. 

This week’s assignment: 

Continue your prayer focus about your attitude this week.  Ask God to develop your passion for serving others, and to cultivate an “others first” awareness in your heart.

Intentionality

“Intentionality makes the difference between mere influence and leadership. For our influence to become leadership, we must be intentional about whom we will use it to serve.”

You know that one of the two main focuses of our ministry is developing the Christian leadership and character of the people who participate in our programs.  Note the careful wording:  we’re developing it, not creating it.  You already have it.  God has given you opportunities for leadership through your specific capacity to shape your culture and the people around you.  We want to help develop that leadership and character by identifying the influence you have, and by focusing on the choices you make about how you will use it. 

If we define influence as our capacity to shape our culture and the people around us, then what we choose to use that influence for is of eternal consequence.  It matters enormously!  Personal leadership development is therefore a mater of stewardship, because it involves the management of a resource entrusted to us by God.

The development of Christian leadership and character begins with an active choice to look for and identify the opportunities we have for influence among those whose paths God has crossed with ours.  Failing to look, and thereby choosing to remain ignorant of the resources we’ve been given, is poor stewardship. 

But we have a second choice to make.  Once we recognize that we have been given some capacity to shape our culture, we must choose what to do with that capacity.  We must choose whether we will embrace those opportunities to serve God and others, or use them to serve ourselves.  This, of course, is also a matter of stewardship. 

You might recall that we discussed this concept on the very first day you were with us at your orientation picnic.  That evening, we highlighted the fact that your effectiveness in leadership would be directly tied to how you answered the question of who you were going to serve.  In the same way that the nation of Israel was admonished to “choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15), we told you that you that you would need to choose, in advance, what you wanted to do with your influence before you discovered that you had it, because the default choice would be to use it to serve yourself.

Intentionality makes the difference between mere influence and leadership.  For our influence to become leadership, we must be intentional about whom we will use it to serve.

Leadership, stewardship and servanthood are inseparable.  Develop one and you’ll develop the others.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the story of three servants who had been entrusted with some property by their master.  Two of them were intentional about what they did with that property, and so increased their master’s profit.  The third was not intentional with what had been entrusted to him.  He therefore did nothing to increase his master’s holdings.

Two things about this parable are especially significant to me:  First, it was the servant who had been given the smallest amount of influence over his master’s fortune that was the least intentional in what he did with it.  Perhaps he considered what he had been given to be insignificant.  Or perhaps he didn’t think he was qualified to do anything significant with it, and so he neglected to develop the potential he had been given.  Either way, it was his poor stewardship of this seemingly meager resource that drew his master’s ire.  He was referred to as wicked, lazy and worthless.

The second thing that I find significant is how the master responded to the others:  “'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'” (vv 21, 23.)  It is almost as though the master was testing their worth with this small task in order to prepare them for a greater one.

We may never be given greater influence as long as we believe that the influence we have right now is insignificant.  The Master wants us to be intentional with how we use what He has already given us.

God has given CTI influence among young musicians.  Music is the common ground that brings us together, but the more important thing is what we do once we’re gathered.  We have intentionally chosen to use that influence – the environment provided by this community that God has drawn together – as more than just a way to minister to others.  We’ve chosen to see it as an opportunity to grow in, and grow each other in, the likeness of Christ. 

And we’ve asked and equipped you to use the resulting influence that God has given you through this environment in a very specific way.  Every time you seize the opportunity to encourage the church, challenge Christians to loving action, or share the hope of Christ, you are leading, because you are being intentional with your influence.  You are being a good steward of opportunity.  And I expect that the words “Well done, good and faithful servant!” are ringing through the heavens in response. 

You are being faithful with a few things.  Expect to be put in charge of many things. 

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Week 2 reflection questions:

1. Do you tend to view the amount of influence you have as insignificant? Does our discussion of the parable of the talents (Matt. 25) have any impact on your view?
2. In what ways can you identify how leadership, stewardship and servanthood are inseparable?
3. Have you made a conscious and specific choice to use every resource that God has given you to serve Him? Are you willing for Him to reveal to you ways in which you’re not doing that?
4. What opportunities for influence are you currently using to serve yourself?

This week’s definition:

LEADERSHIP = influence + intentionality

This week’s quote: 

Intentionality makes the difference between mere influence and leadership.  For our influence to become leadership, we must be intentional about whom we will use it to serve.

This week’s assignment: 

Last week we asked you to reflect on and identify areas where God has given you influence -  some capacity to shape your culture and the people around you.  This week we want you to reflect on what your default response is in those situations where you discover that you have influence:

• Is it your natural tendency to use that influence to serve God and others?
• or… if you’re honest, do you often engage in more self-serving behavior?

Make it a focus in prayer this week to ask God to intervene in those moments when your inclination is to serve yourself.  Moving from an inward to an outward focus in this regard is a perpetual aspect of developing in Christian leadership and Character.  (It’s also the focus of next week’s post.)

You have a decision to make

“We are to be shapers of our culture rather than allowing ourselves to be shaped by it.” – Phil Lutz

Do you think of yourself as a leader (or potential leader?)

Try to get past the general “everyone can make a difference” positive-thinking rhetoric that our culture promotes, and consider the question seriously: do you really comprehend and believe in the potential you have for leadership?

If not, you might be subscribing to a somewhat narrow and limiting definition of leadership as reinforced by our culture.  This definition encourages assumptions similar to the following:

• Leadership means being in charge: directing others to reach a particular goal;
• Leadership requires authority: it’s a position that I need to be put into by someone else;
• Leadership involves teaching others how to do something that I know how to do (which means that I need to know more about it, be more experienced in it, or be more competent than them at whatever it is I’m leading them towards.)
• Leadership is a status earned by putting in my time and good behavior… or a privilege and authority I deserve because of my depth of experience in a particular area.

Now, some of these assumptions may be applicable to what I refer to as “positional” leadership.  You may not think that you meet some of these qualifications, and that may be impacting whether or not you view yourself as a leader.  But when we talk about CTI’s vision to develop Christian leadership and character in young musicians, we’re embracing a much broader and more inclusive view of what it means to be a leader.  We’re talking about how we choose to use the capacity we’ve been given to shape our culture.

Make no mistake about the fact that you have been given such capacity.  Every one of us has.  And it doesn’t matter if our individual capacity is limited or expansive… what matters is what we choose to do with whatever capacity we’ve been given.

In Mark 12, Jesus observes people giving money to the temple treasury.  Some people gave large amounts, but Jesus commended the widow who gave everything she had, even though it amounted to much less than what anyone else had given.  They had given some out of their abundance, but she had given everything she had.  She maximized her impact within the bounds of what she had been given.  Jesus found this to be significant, and told his disciples that she had actually given more than all the others. (Mark 12:41-44 / Luke 21:1-4.)

Don’t believe for a second that your “limited” capacity to have an impact makes what you have to offer insignificant to Jesus.  He’s not at all concerned with how much you’ve been given.  He’s interested in what you choose to do with it. 

The same is true of your capacity to lead.  I don’t believe that leadership is a measure of how much influence you have.  I believe it’s a measure of how effectively you use whatever influence you do have… and we have all been given some degree of influence.

If you agree, then you’re on the hook to make a decision about your personal leadership development, because what we choose to do with the potential God has given us is a matter of stewardship:

• Will I choose to look for the areas where God has given me some capacity to influence, or
• Am I too comfortable with not discovering them, since I know that discovering them will cost me something… perhaps everything I have, as it did the widow?

You cannot refuse to choose.  Not intentionally making a choice is choosing the latter.

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Week 1 reflection questions:

1. Are you in the habit of thinking of yourself as leader? If not, what patterns of thinking do you need to change in order to start seeing yourself this way?
2. Do you agree with the notion that leadership isn’t a measure of how much influence you have, but of how effectively you use whatever influence you do have?
3. Do you agree with / understand the importance of developing leadership in yourself as a matter of stewardship? 
4. Are you already aware of areas where God has given you some capacity for influence? Might there be other areas you aren’t yet aware of?

This week’s definition:

INFLUENCE = our capacity to shape our culture and the people around us.

This week’s quote: 

“We are to be shapers of our culture rather than allowing ourselves to be shaped by it.” – Phil Lutz

This week’s assignment: 

Reflect on and identify areas where God has given you some capacity to shape your culture and the people around you.