Leadership Lessons From Jesus - Part 4

Team Building

A mark of a great leader is how many people will join his or her team. You never lead by yourself. You always do it in the context of a team. All great leaders are great team builders. In fact, as Rick Warren says, “If you don’t have a team, you’re not a leader. You’re a loner.” The test of leadership is whether anyone is following you. In other words, if no one is following you, you’re not leading, you’re merely taking a walk.

Jesus modeled this kind of ministry. From a large group of disciples who were following Jesus, Jesus chose twelve who would become His inner circle. This was such a significant decision for Him that he stayed up all night praying. The next morning He called together all those who were following Him and chose from that group the twelve disciples. Jesus never did ministry alone. Mark 3:14 says, “He appointed twelve – designating them apostles – that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.”

Jesus enlisted other people to serve the cause with him. In Luke 10:1 we read “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.”

In his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership John Maxwell says “A leader’s potential is determined by those closest to him” Leaders understand that their best course of action for achieving their vision and reaching their destination is to build a team to take the journey with them. In a Team Everyone Achieves More.

Leadership Lessons From Jesus - Part 3

Motivation: Know who you’re trying to please.  

Leaders, you need to settle the issue of motivation.  You can’t please everybody.  Just about the time you get one person happy, you’ll tick someone else off.   Jesus lived for an audience of One.  His whole purpose was to please his heavenly Father.  Jesus says this in John 5 and 6; “I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 5:30). “I have come down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38).  In other words, Jesus said, “The only one I am trying to please is the One who sent Me.” 

Jesus wasn’t trying to win a popularity contest; he just wanted to please God. 

That’s a lesson we have to learn as leaders. You’ve got to learn not to care about the opinions of others. You’ve got to focus on God’s opinion of what you’re doing.  As a leader you should not pay attention to those who cheer you, for they will make you think you are better than you really are, or those who jeer you, for they will make you think you are not as good as you really are.  Either one will sidetrack you. 

A mentor of mine told me one time, “Don’t try to please every one, for the moment you do, you will please no one.”  Who are you trying to please?  Because I am a man of faith, I believe the first person we should try to please is God.  We were created to bring glory to Him.  I think secondly, we ought to try to please ourselves, not in a hedonistic way, but in a self-respecting way.  At the end of the day, do I respect myself?  Have I stood for and lived out the values that I hold true?  Have I held fast to the vision that I believe God has given me, though some are questioning?   

At the end of the day I am most satisfied when I can honestly say, “Today, I held fast to my faith, to my values, and to my vision.”

Leadership Lessons From Jesus #2

I’m continuing this series on leadership lessons from the greatest leader of all time, Jesus.  Jesus was the perfect leader.

Know Your Purpose. 

    I have found that the reason most people don’t have passion in life is because they don’t have purpose.  Purpose gives passion.  Leaders figure out what their purpose in life is.  They know why they are here.  They understand clearly what God has called them to do with their lives.  Leaders have, as Rick Warren states it, “purpose-driven lives.”  The direction of your life is your choice.  If you don’t like the direction your life is headed right now, change it.  

    Jesus knew exactly what His purpose on this earth was.  He knew why He came.  He was a straightforward leader who established clear-cut goals.  In John 8 Jesus says, “I know where I came from and I know where I’m going.” Jesus had a clear purpose.  Jesus made statements such as:  

“Let’s go on to the neighboring villages so that I may preach there too. This is why I have come.” 

“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 

“I have come down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” 

“I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”

“I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me would not remain in    darkness.

    Jesus not only knew who he was, but what he was trying to do with his life.  He so effectively instilled His purpose into His followers that His purpose continues today through His followers.  He truly was a purpose-driven leader.   

    God has a purpose for your life.  Purpose gives meaning to your life.  Purpose gives passion.  If you don’t fulfill it, you have wasted your life.  A leader knows for what purpose he/she is here and pursues it with passion.

Leadership Lessons From Jesus

There are no perfect leaders.  I’m not a perfect leader. Neither are you.  But Jesus is.  There’s no better teacher on leadership than Jesus.  What made him such an effective leader?  Jesus understood leadership.  He taught leadership and He demonstrated leadership.

Jesus lived less than forty years on this earth.  He began a movement with a small inner-circle of twelve.  The leadership lessons Jesus lived and taught to His disciples enabled them to carry on His mission so that within just five generations, the number of His followers reached into the millions.  Today, His followers number more than one billion and the organization He founded – the church – has branches in every country on earth.

The leadership principles Jesus lived and taught are applicable in any area of life today, whether in an office, a school, a small business, a global corporation, or a volunteer organization.  In the next several articles I want to examine those leadership principles that made Jesus so incredibly effective.

Know Yourself
To be a leader you’ve got to know who you are.  Every leader has strengths and weaknesses and they know the areas of leadership in which they are strong and which areas of leadership they are not. Leaders do an honest self-evaluation. Good leaders don’t try to be something they are not. They are self-aware.  They understand their purpose in life.  Jesus had no doubt about his identity. He said:

• I am the light of the world.
• I am the Son of God.
• I am the way.
• I am the truth.
• I am the life.
• I am the bread of life.

Jesus defines himself 18 times by saying, “I am…” He didn’t let other people define him. He defined himself. If you’re going to be a leader, you must know who you are.  Answer the following questions:

Do you “know yourself”? *

1.   What are my character strengths?
2.   What are my character weaknesses?
3.   What are my strongest skills?
4.   What are my weakest skills?
5.   How well do I relate to others (1 to 10)?
6.   How well do I communicate with others (1 to 10)?
7.   How well do I listen to others (1 to 10)?
8.   How likable am I (1 to 10)?

Now ask three people who know you well to answer the same questions about you.  If their answers are different from yours, then you have a self-awareness issue that you need to work on.  Find a mentor, business or life coach, or counselor to help you become more self-aware.

*Adapted from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

Leadership Lessons I've Learned - Part 2.

These are more leadership lessons I’ve learned over the years.

Character is Critical.

Bob Burg says, "All things being equal, people will do business with people they know, like, and trust."  Trust is the key word in that statement.  Your character determines who you are.  Anyone can say that he has integrity, but action is the real indicator of character.  That is why you can never separate a leader’s character from his actions.  I have found that it takes a long time to earn the respect of people, but it only takes a moment to lose their respect.  G. Alan Bernard, president of Mid Park, Inc., stated, “The respect that leadership must have requires that one’s ethics be without question.  A leader not only stays above the line between right and wrong, he stays well clear of the gray areas.” 

Failure is Inevitable

No one's life is an unbroken chain of successes and victories.  We all experience setbacks, defeats, and failures.  In baseball, not even the Hall of Fame players bat 1,000%.  The same is true in leadership - we all make mistakes.  Since failure is something every one of us will, at some time, experience, one of the most important skills you can acquire is the ability to take the negative and turn it into a positive.  Thomas Edison, commenting on one of his MANY failed experiments, said, "Don't call it a failure.  Call it an education!"  Successful leaders learn how to get up after they fall; they learn how to fail forward.  Remember, things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.  The first thing to do when you're faced with any failure is to analyze why it happened. There may be a variety of reasons of failure, many out of your control.

Common Causes of Failure:

- When you don't plan ahead

As the saying goes, "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail."   Moving your organization towards greater growth and health requires a lot of planning.  Noah began building the Ark long before it started to rain!

- When you’re afraid to take risks

The fear of failure can cause failure.  We worry about what others will think of us if we fail, so we don't even try.  Fran Tarkenton says, "Fear sets you up to be a loser."  Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.  You can’t win the game if you don’t first take the field.

- When you give up too soon

Look at the life of Abraham Lincoln.  At 23 he lost his job and his first election.  At 24 he failed at his first business endeavor.  At 25 he was elected to state legislature.  At 27 he had a nervous breakdown.  At 29 he lost another election.  At 34 he was defeated for nomination for Congress.  At 37 he was elected to Congress.  At 39 he lost his re-nomination.  At 40 he was rejected for land officer.  At 45 he was defeated for US Senate.  At 47 he was defeated for nomination for Vice President.  At 49 he was defeated again for US Senate.  At 51 he was elected as President of the United States.  Lincoln never gave up.

Leadership Lessons I’ve Learned - Part 1

     I’ve been doing some reflecting lately on leadership lessons I’ve learned over the years. I’ve been privileged to serve in leadership positions for most of my adult life. I have learned much from mentors and through experience. I will acknowledge that most of what I have learned came from reading and listening to John Maxwell. Over the next few weeks I’ll share these lessons with the hope that they will be of great value to you.

1. Everything rises and falls on leadership

     Most successes can be traced back to competent and effective leadership and most problems can be traced to a lack of competent leadership. I believe that one of the greatest problems we have in our nation today, (especially in the political arena) is a significant shortage of men and women who are skilled in leadership.

2. Leadership is influence.

      I learned this lesson while reading “Spiritual Leadership” by J. Oswald Sanders. For better or worse, good or bad; leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. Put a group five or six children together in a room and within five minutes you will be able to determine which one will be the leader -- for good or for bad. The same is true in a youth group. It doesn’t take long to determine who to whom everyone else looks and listens. In board meetings, there is one person who is in leadership by position, but it doesn’t take long to determine who the real leader is in the room. It’s the person with the most influence.

3. The test of leadership: “Is anyone following?”
      If you want to know whether or not you're a leader, simply look over your shoulder. John Maxwell says, "He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk." If you have to remind people that you're the leader, then you're not. Leadership is influence and if you're not influencing anybody, it doesn't matter that you think you're the leader -- you're not.

4. People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

     I think it is more true to say, “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care about him or her as an individual.” People will follow a leader anywhere if they know that he/she cares for them and that he/she truly respects and desires to add value to them. The moment that people sense that the leader does not care, influence and thus leadership have been lost.

5. Leadership can be learned

     The question is often asked, “Are leaders born?” Of course they are. All leaders are born, but they do not come out of their mother’s womb a leader. Leadership skills are learned. Leadership experts Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus wrote, “It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from their followers.” The good news is, anybody can learn to be a leader.

Setting Goals

Someone said, “If you shoot at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”  Isn’t that true?  If you don't have any goals, you're not going to achieve anything worthwhile.

The first time this lesson really hit home to me was when I was pastor of a church in North Carolina.  Our average Sunday morning attendance was 180.  I announced to the church that we’re going to have a Friend Day and set a goal to have 400 in attendance on that day.  There were several in the church who did not believe we could reach that goal.  Every time a person said to me “We can’t do it” I responded with, “That may be true but will you help us try?”  I always received an affirmative answer.  On Friend Day we had nearly 500 in attendance and the excitement level in the church was astounding.

I believe in goal setting.  The practice of setting and working towards goals helps us to achieve more.  I have not always seen my goals fulfilled, however.  For example, at the church I pastor now, we set a goal of 800 in church on an Easter Sunday some years back.  Our average attendance at that time was 450.  "Only" 713 showed up, which still made it one of the biggest Sunday’s in our church’s history.  Had we not set the goal, however, we would not have come close to seeing that many people in church.  As a result, we added families to the membership of our church.

Several years ago, my wife and I set a goal to be debt free within two years (with the exception of our mortgage).  I told a number of people what we were trying to achieve.  I found that once I had made it known, I held myself more accountable.  I did not want to fail.  18 months later we reached our goal.  Had we not set the goal, we would probably still be in debt today.  Now that I am debt free, I have more options with the money that I have.

I am convinced that our goals, whether we reach them or not, help us achieve more.  So I will continue to set goals even at the risk of failing.

Tips for setting SMART goals.

SPECIFIC: The goal must clearly state what is to be achieved and when it is to be achieved.

MEASURABLE: This applies to both the end result and markers along the way to attaining a goal. It answers the questions of how much, how often, how many?  When my wife and I set the goal to be debt free, our first marker was to put $1,000.00 in an emergency fund.  Each paid off loan (car, credit cards, school, etc) served as a marker that we were on the right track to attaining our goal.

ATTAINABLE: Make sure that the goals you set are achievable. If you set goals that even you believe are unattainable it is very unlikely you will achieve them.

RELEVANT: Your goals must be relevant to what you want to achieve in your life.  They must fulfill a purpose and passion in your life or you will not stick with them.  My wife and I wanted to become debt free because we knew that it would give us opportunities to give more to what was important to us.

TIME-BASED: Setting a time by which you want to have achieved your goal is highly motivational.  As we got closer and closer to being debt free, we would get more excited and became more intense in our desire to achieve that goal.


Sign up for my weekly leadership newsletter here.