What is a Leader
Secular Definition
Leadership is the process of persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by a leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers.” John W. Gardner, On Leadership.
• “Leadership over human beings is exercised when persons with certain motives and purposes mobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological, and other resources so as to arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers.” James MacGregor Burns, Leadership.
• “Leadership is influence, the ability of one person to influence others.” Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership.
• “A Christian leader is someone who is called by God to lead; leads with and through Christlike character; and demonstrates the functional competencies that permit effective leadership to take place.” George Barna, Leaders on Leadership.
• “The central task of leadership is influencing God’s people toward God’s purposes.” Robert Clinton, The Making of a Leader.
Secular leaders may lead people to achieve their goals, even goals held by their followers. But this is not the focus of spiritual leaders. Spiritual leadership involves more than merely achieving goals. People can accomplish all of their goals and still not be successful in God’s kingdom.
While it is true that leaders have motives, spiritual leaders are directed by the Holy Spirit, not by their own agendas
Spiritual Leadership
5 Tasks of spiritual leaders
Our definition assumes that spiritual leaders use spiritual means to move or influence people as opposed to methods devoid of God. When spiritual leaders have done their jobs, the people around them have encountered God and obeyed his will
“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.… By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me” (John 5:19–20, 30 NIV)
Spiritual leaders work within a paradox, for God calls them to do something that, in fact, only God can do. Ultimately, spiritual leaders cannot produce spiritual change in people; only the Holy Spirit can accomplish this. Yet the Spirit often uses people to bring about spiritual growth in others. Moses dealt with this paradox when God commissioned him to go to Egypt to free the Israelites. God said, “ ‘I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land …’ ” (Exod. 3:7–8). So far, this sounded fine to Moses. God was going to do something that only God could do. Then God added an unsettling instruction, ‘ “Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt’ ” (Exod. 3:10). That is the crux of spiritual leadership. Leaders seek to move people on to God’s agenda, all the while being aware that only the Holy Spirit can ultimately accomplish the task.
Spiritual leadership necessitates an acute sense of accountability. Just as a teacher has not taught until students have learned, leaders don’t blame their followers when they don’t do what they should do. Leaders don’t make excuses. They assume their responsibility is to move people to do God’s will. Until they do this, they have not yet fulfilled their role as leaders. True spiritual leadership is taking people from where they are to where God wants them to be.
The greatest obstacle to effective spiritual leadership is people pursuing their own agendas rather than seeking God’s will. God is working throughout the world to achieve his purposes and to advance his kingdom. God’s concern is not to advance leaders’ dreams and goals or to build their kingdoms. His purpose is to turn his people away from their self-centeredness and their sinful desires and to draw them into a relationship with himself.
Spiritual leaders seek God’s will, whether it is for their church or for their corporation, and then they marshal their people to pursue God’s plan.
