The Leaders Challenge Chapter 1
What is a good leader?
Our world craves good leaders. It would seem that effective leadership has become the panacea for every challenge society faces. Whether it’s in politics, religion, business, education, or law, the universally expressed need is for leaders who will rise to meet the challenges that seem to overwhelm many of today’s organizations. The problem is not a shortage of willing leaders. The problem is an increasingly skeptical view among followers as to whether these people can truly lead. Warren Bennis warned, “At the heart of America is a vacuum into which self-anointed saviors have rushed.” People know intuitively that claiming to be a leader or holding a leadership position does not make someone a leader. People are warily looking for leaders they can trust.
• People know intuitively that claiming to be a leader or holding a leadership position does not make someone a leader.
• Society longs for statesmen, but it gets politicians.
Is Leadership Secular or Spiritual
This issue of leadership holds a deeper dimension for Christians: Is Christian leadership the same thing as secular leadership? Modern bookstores have capitalized on the chronic thirst for leadership. They stock shelves and shelves with books on leadership and management. Leaders who have been successful in business, sports, politics, or any other field have written autobiographies detailing their success. The myriad of such books testifies to the large number of people eagerly scouring the pages hoping to find the secret to their own effectiveness as leaders in their respective fields. The question many Christian leaders face is whether the principles that make people successful leaders in sports or business are equally valid when applied to leadership issues in the kingdom of God. The pastor examines the leadership style of a successful football coach and wonders: Will these same principles work for me as I lead my church?
This raises a significant issue for Christian leaders: Do leadership principles found in secular writing and seminars apply to work done in God’s kingdom? Many Christian leaders think so. The current generation of Christian leaders has immersed itself in the popular leadership writings of its day. This acceptance of secular approaches by Christian leaders can be observed in numerous places. The shift in the traditional nomenclature from the pastor’s study to the pastor’s office is one consequence. In times past, churches focused on the Great Commission. Today’s churches adopt mission statements. In earlier times, churches spoke of building fellowship. Contemporary Christian leaders build teams and lead their people through team-building exercises. Churches used to put church signs in front of their buildings in the hopes of attracting people to their services. Today’s churches use state-of-the-art marketing principles to reach their communities. Pastors of large churches (and some not so large) are beginning to act more like CEOs than shepherds. The pastor’s office is located in the Executive Suite, next to the boardroom where the leadership team meets. Is this adoption of secular leadership methodology a sorely needed improvement for churches? Or is it woefully inadequate? Is it a violation of biblical principles? Many church leaders claim these innovations have resulted in dramatic growth in their congregations, including a significant proportion of converts. Other Christian leaders decry such approaches as blatant theological and biblical compromise.
The trend toward a CEO model of ministry has changed the churches’ evaluations of effective leadership. The pastor’s ability is measured in terms of numbers of people, dollars, and buildings. The more of each, the more successful the pastor. As Pastor Edwards discovered, the godliness of a minister may not be enough to satisfy a congregation looking to keep up with the church down the street. Likewise, Christian organizations seem willing to overlook significant character flaws, and even moral lapses, as long as their leader continues to produce.
The trend among many Christian leaders has been for an almost indiscriminate and uncritical acceptance of secular leadership theory without measuring it against the timeless precepts of Scripture. This book will look at contemporary leadership principles in light of scriptural truth. It will become clear that many of the “modern” leadership principles currently being espoused are, in fact, biblical principles that have been commanded by God throughout history. For example, secular writers on leadership are insisting on integrity as an essential characteristic for modern leaders. This is nothing new for Christians. The Bible has maintained that as a leadership standard for over two millennia.
Paradoxically, concurrent with the churches’ discovery of popular leadership axioms, secular writers have been discovering the timeless truths of Christianity. A partial explanation for this juxtaposition may be that many secular writers on leadership are Christians, or at least religious people. More fundamentally, this shift to Christian principles is because leadership experts are discovering that doing business in a Christian manner, regardless of whether one is a practicing Christian, is, quite simply, good for business. Earlier leadership theories assumed the best CEOs were larger-than-life, charismatic people who stood aloof from those they led, giving orders to be followed unquestioningly. In contrast, today’s leadership gurus are writing books that appear almost Christian. Book titles such as Jesus CEO, Management Lessons of Jesus, Servant Leadership, Love and Profit, Leading with Soul, and Encouraging the Heart sound like they ought to be shelved in a Christian college, not in the office of a corporate CEO.
The Christian tenor of these books goes beyond their titles. It is common to read in secular leadership books that companies should make covenants with their people, that business leaders should love their people, that managers should be servant leaders, that leaders should show their feelings to their employees, that business leaders must have integrity, that leaders must tell the truth, and interestingly, that leaders must strive for a higher purpose than merely making a profit. These principles appear to be more in keeping with the Sermon on the Mount than with the Harvard Business School. Incredibly, as secular writers are embracing Christian teachings with the fervency of first-century Christians, Christian leaders are inadvertently jettisoning many of those same truths in an effort to become more contemporary!
Are you leading in the right direction?
What went wrong? The problem was the Israelite’s assumption that spiritual concerns, such as righteous living and obedience to God, belonged in the religious realm while the practical issues of doing battle with enemies, strengthening the economy, and unifying the country were secular matters. They forgot that God himself had won their military victories, brought them prosperity, and created their nation. He was as active on the battlefield as he was in the worship service. When the Israelites separated spiritual concerns from political and economic issues, their nation was brought to its knees. Scripture indicates that it is a mistake to separate the spiritual world from the secular world.
Applying spiritual principles to business and political issues doesn’t call for Baptist pastors to serve as military generals, nor does it require seminary professors to run the economy. God created people to be spiritual beings. Every person, Christian and non-Christian alike, is a spiritual person with spiritual needs. Employees, customers, and governing boards all have spiritual needs that God wants to meet through his servants in the workplace. God is also the author of human relationships. He has established laws in relationships that have not changed with the passing of time. To violate God-ordained relationship principles in the workplace is to invite disaster. Jesus Christ is the Lord of all believers whether they are at church or at work. The kingdom of God is, in fact, the rule of God in every area of life, including the church, home, workplace, and neighborhood. To ignore these truths when entering the business world or political arena is to do so at one’s peril.
Society’s problem is more than just a lack of leaders. Society’s great deficit is that it does not have enough leaders who understand and practice Christian principles of leadership. Effective leaders are not enough. Hitler was an effective leader. The world needs people in business who know how to apply their faith in the boardroom as well as in the Bible study room. Jesus summed up this truth for every executive, politician, schoolteacher, lawyer, doctor, and parent, when he said: ‘ “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’ ” (Matt. 6:33 NIV).