IDMC 06 Rethinking Leadership       9 Sep 2006 

PERSONAL LEADERSHIP

Edmund Chan

      Leadership is one of the hardest things to do.  It is a multi-dimensional function. 

      When most people think of leadership, they often think of downward leadership, i.e. leading subordinates for whom they are responsible.  This is sometimes difficult for a complexity of reasons.  Yet that is not the whole terrain of leadership.  A leader often has to exercise upward leadership as well, i.e. leading seniors.  If the seniors are kind to you, it is easier.  Otherwise, it can be rather challenging.  As difficult as it may be to lead either downward or upward, nothing really prepares the leader for the immense difficulty to exercise peer leadership, i.e. leading one's co-equals, perceived or otherwise.  This is often much more difficult because of a common defiant attitude among peers:  "Who do you think you are to lead us?" 

      Unless the organisational culture (how we do things here) and the organisational climate (how we feel about the way we do things here) foster healthy peer leadership - because of effective team building - to lead one's peers can be an ongoing nightmare.  Things seem to progress smoothly until a leadership crunch comes with differing opinions and everyone does what is right in their own eyes.  The key to overcoming difficulties in leadership of peers is: 

      1. Define clear leadership roles and expectations

      2. Determine clear decision-making process

      3. Develop strong leadership credibility 

      But this is not our present focus.  I want to deal with something much harder, something that will help us in the multi-dimensional landscape of leadership.  There is yet a final frontier.  The hardest challenge in leadership is not peer leadership, as challenging as that may be.  There is a much harder leadership terrain. 

Leading Oneself

      In essence, the most difficult leadership task of all is to lead inward - the task of personal leadership.  The consequence of this is most significant.  In the January 2002 edition of the Charisma Magazine, the editorial sought to explain why the magazine would no longer feature Christian celebrities on its cover. 

"This magazine has had its share of Christian celebrities on its covers:  pastors of mega-churches, award-winning musicians, best-selling authors, etc.  We all love famous people - perhaps because we envy their success, or maybe because we are just curious whether they have flaws.  In the end, these flawed celebrities often disappoint us.  Ten of the ministry leaders featured on the covers of Charisma in the 1980s eventually endured embarrassing scandals.  Two of the six mega-churches we featured 16 years ago in a series called "Outstanding Churches of America" disbanded because of moral failures.  What seems to glitter with success today may not stand the heat of God's refining fire tomorrow." 

      This highlights the hardest leadership task of all.  For if I am not able to lead myself, how can I effectively lead others, since leadership has a great deal to do with modeling and mentoring? 

      Dee Hock, leadership thinker and author of books on the chaordic organisations and leadership made a stunning statement:  "Leaders should spend 50% of their time leading themselves."  Another leadership guru, Warren Bennis, in his excellent book Why Leaders Can't Lead, instructs that there are at least 4 things leaders must manage:

                  (1) Manage Attention

                  (2) Manage Meaning

                  (3) Manage Trust

                  (4) Manage Oneself 

      He left the most important for the last: managing oneself.  Leading oneself is the hardest thing to do.  That takes due diligence.

Leadership with Diligence

      Perhaps that is why the Apostle Paul's view on leadership is quite different from that which comes out of the slick North American leadership rhetoric for many decades.  In the world's leadership rhetoric, vision and vision-casting are buzz words, as are words like execution, goal-setting, bench-marking, creativity, core values, vital contributions.  There is nothing wrong with these leadership rhetoric per se.  The only problem is that they are performance driven.  They miss the heart of leading from the inside out.  

      Paul's take on leadership is quietly striking.  One of the key verses in the New Testament on leadership is found in Romans 12:8 - if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. [NIV]

      Why lead with diligence?  Why not lead with conviction?  Or, with vision?  Or, with courage?  Or, with creativity?  Or, with compassion?  Or, with character? 

      What does "diligence" mean?  Essentially, it means "hardworking-ness".  The answer then is quite obvious.  In order to persevere in conviction, courage, creativity, compassion and character (and whatever else!) we need diligence.  Leadership without diligence is a contradiction of terms.  Leaders need to work hard to stay true in conviction, courage, creativity, compassion and character.  That's the essence of personal leadership! 

      Some might say, if we need diligence for leadership, surely we also need to do other things with diligence, e.g. counselling, teaching, community service, mentoring, prayer.  Why is leadership singled out as something to be done with diligence?  First, Paul is not reserving the quality of diligence for leadership alone.  Nonetheless, when Paul thinks of leadership, one word comes to his mind: diligence. 

      The reason is this: unlike any other ministry in the kingdom of God (e.g. preaching, counselling) where you can still get a good sermon or have a good counselling process by just going through the motion, you cannot go through the motion in leadership and still get good leadership!  The key is this: "diligence" presupposes a steadfast commitment to resist the status quo and to press on ahead regardless.  Diligence does not settle, it presses on and moves on faithfully. 

      Good leadership has to hold fast to a God-given vision, resist the status quo and diligently move on to new ventures, new initiatives and claim new grounds for the Kingdom of God.  Diligent leadership refuses to just go through the motion.  Yet, it must be seen that the greatest move from the status quo is in leading oneself.  So often, we stop at the status quo in personal leadership? 

      Song of Solomon 1:6 states something worth our attention: ...they made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected. A modern applicational rendering of this might be: "They made me responsible to lead others but in all the running around, I have not be diligent in managing, stewarding and leading myself."  This is an all too common experience in ministry today.  Leaders are all too often fully engaged and are tired and fatigued.  Why?  Besides the other reasons such as taking on too much, not sharing out the work enough, etc, a main reason for leaders becoming burnt out is a neglect of one's inner life.   

      There is a common misconception that as leaders, we must be diligent, so we work hard, in fact, we often overwork, thinking that producing more results (by whatever parameters you chose to measure with) is the goal of leadership.  This is the performance trap.  The performance driven approach to leadership and ministry focuses on doing, on activities, programs and results.  It has two problems, firstly, it misses the call to develop character, instead it predisposes to pride and one-up-manship; secondly, its natural consequence is tiredness and fatigue, and leads ultimately to discouragement, disillusionment and collapse of the leader, and sometimes collapse of the ministry.  It misses the restedness of the soul, knowing that the outcome and results are in the Lord's hands.  

      How then can we lead from the inside out?  What is the key to personal leadership?

The Inner Life

      Herein lies a paradox:  To lead from the inward, we have to look upward.  To God.  There is no better place to start than the Word and Prayer.  No magic formula, just the basics.  There is a critical need to build depth in our lives.  The most important action we can take is to nurture the inner life.   

Nurturing the inner must include:   

1. Study  - the Word, comprehensively and in depth.  Memorise scripture.

2. Solitude - in Prayer, in close communion with the Lord daily

3. Surrender - to the Lord, your personal agenda, abilities, achievements

4. Service - serve in the Body of Christ 

      Prayer and the Word are the true Compass for life and ministry.  Leadership starts from the inner life.  The quality of the inner life determines the outflow of ministry and leadership.  You see, the greatest need of the world is hope.  Hope is only found in the Gospel of Christ.  The greatest need of the church is leadership, spiritual leadership that will revitalise the church to bring the hope of the Gospel to the world. 

      The Prairie Overcomer once published this story about a boat with two compasses:   

Before the days of modern satellite navigation, a man boarded a boat to cross the Atlantic.  Walking aboard the boat, he noticed that the boat was equipped with two compasses.  One was fixed to the deck where the man at the helm in the wheelhouse could see it.  The other compass was fastened up on top of one of the masts.  A sailor would be seen regularly climbing up to inspect it. 

The passenger asked the captain, "Why do you have two compasses?"

"This is an iron vessel," replied the captain, "and the compass on the deck is often affected by its surroundings.  But such is not the case with the compass at the masthead; that one is above the influence.  We steer by the compass above."

      As Christian leaders, we too must steer by the compass above.  That we might lead as such.  From upward to inward to outward.  This is the true movement of effective personal leadership for life and ministry! 

Lead with due diligence

from an inner compass

through the inner life.