LEADERSHIP Series: GOT A LIGHT?

In John Kotter's 1990 article What Leaders Really Do he observed that: "Well-led businesses tend to recognize and reward people who successfully develop leaders."

I would posit that developing leaders is not the result of quiet (or loud) arrogance or an overweening view of self. Rather, developing and nurturing others to lead takes, at least, an attitude that “followers” have something to offer, too. The burning question is, "Why would anyone want to be led by you?"

In fact, I discovered that Goffee and Jones had asked this very question in a ten-year study and the results published in the Sept-Oct 2000 HBR, Why Should Anyone Be Lead by You? They discovered four "unexpected" traits of "inspirational" leaders and the first is that these kinds of leaders "reveal their weaknesses."

Proud people would shun away from that kind of leading. Their only "light" for their path is themselves. No one else can do it better, think in through better or explain it better. It is all about them. As Coffee and Jones point out, people who try to communicate that "there will be no need for anyone to help them with anything...signal that they can do it themselves." That is not leading: preening, maybe: Leading no!

Leading does require a vision – and then sharing that vision with staff. A sense of command is important to leadership. Passion and strategic thinking are vital. But as important as these traits are to leaders, they will fail to lead if they try to do it from a position of pride.

Moses led millions. He learned to better manage the process by his father-in-law who immediately saw a managerial flaw early in Moses' career as the leader. Moses listened, set up the system to manage the process. And Numbers 12:3 reminds us that "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." Leading, from a position of humility, works.

Christians should have a natural advantage as business leaders. After all, we have "put off the old" haven't we - and now we have "the mind of Christ" ruling our lives, right? But humility is hard work, and for the driven and successful, very hard work. We are so used to solving problems on the fly, driving action, dynamic presentations, and on top of things, that it is very easy to forget that we are stewards of those gifts of leadership. We are called to manage ALL that God has given us for His glory. Our flesh is not about humility, rather about what "lights us up!" And God calls this sin.

Lamps whose light source is self, is a dead light. It's a lamp that lights the path to destruction. On the other hand, we are told to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16

It's all about His light. Not ours.

Are you shining? Is it your feeble light or His strong light?

Copyright (c) 2009 by P. Griffith Lindell. This content may be copied with a current recognition of source.