Blog

Why Are You a Leader?

by Bill Lawrence, President of Leader Formation International

Have you ever wondered why you are a leader? Can you answer this question? Why do I have the abilities and the opportunities to be a leader? You might even wonder at times if you have the gifts to be the kind of leader you must be to face some of the overwhelming demands put on you.

There is only one answer.

You are a leader because God called you to be a leader. It is not because of any decision you made, although you responded to His call and made that choice. God gave you the opportunity to be a leader, and without His hand on your life, even when you might be unaware of His presence, you would never be a so blessed—or have such a burden. All of this happened because of God’s grace. 

At times the demands of leadership may be so great that you long to be relieved of the responsibilities you have.  However, you play a vital part in God’s plan for those you influence because, throughout all of history, God has accomplished His purposes though leaders He has raised up, even when they are afraid and struggling. Consider Moses or David or Peter or Paul. None of them were qualified to do what they did apart from God’s enablement.  None of us would do what we do if God hadn’t called us to be leaders.

The greatest strength a leader has is weakness, then God will move us to dependence on His all-powerful omnipotence through us. Leaders look strong until we move into positions of responsibility and those who know us will realize that we are weak in ourselves apart from the power of God in us. Through us He expresses His power. He transforms our weakness into His strength by His grace as He has done in leaders throughout history.

Do you realize that God’s call to leadership is a holy call? It is a special call from God to you, and He wants to use you to make a difference in the hearts of those you influence.  You must remember that leadership is a movement from one leader’s heart to another and not just a matter of action from one vision to another or from one organization or government to another. The heart must be at the essence of one truth to a deeper truth or it fails. This is why leadership must be a holy call in business, politics or education, even when there is nothing religious about it. Those who lead must have spiritual drives or they will fail as leaders. That has certainly been true of effective business and political leaders who have made radical impacts without being overtly Christian.  

What greater privilege could you have? It doesn’t matter whether you have limited or major leadership responsibility. What matters is that you fulfill that responsibility according to the way God is forming you. The end result is that you make a difference in others whom He is calling you to influence.

We must realize that we see reality differently from the way God sees it.  He sees who we are as much more important than what we accomplish.  He can always get things done Himself.  However, getting us to be the kind of men and women He wants us to be is a much greater task from His perspective. He has the will, the plan, the love, the patience, the purpose, the endurance—all that and more to get one of us to be the kind of leader He can use to accomplish His purposes. He wants us to be His kind of people. That’s what Genesis 1 and 2 is all about and what He came to accomplish in Genesis 3—and at Calvary. And that is what forming leaders is all about.

The only way we can lead as God wants us to lead is to lead His way, which is with His kind of heart, so the change in leadership must begin in us.  Leadership is failing today because it has overlooked the heart. We’re good at the head and the hands, at thinking, developing a vision, planning, communicating, convincing, doing, all of the  elements needed to accomplish significant tasks. 

He takes us through our Gethsemanes to our Calvaries, through our graves and our resurrections into our lives with Christ in us so we can be His instruments, His kind of leaders forming even more leaders to accomplish His aims. What could be more than this? This is why you are His leaders. Subject yourself to Him and His purposes, accomplish His aim, be His difference-maker, and make His difference, whether you are in business, education, service, or as a parent—whatever God calls you to. Do it His way, lead according to His will, form His kind of leaders, make His difference, and express His glory.

2000 years ago an unknown man called 12 unknown men who laid the foundation for a movement that transformed cultures, influenced multiple generations, brought down governments, and overcame all efforts to destroy it in every part of the world, all under the influence of a cross-bearing man. The man is Jesus, the men are His disciples, and cross-bearing men are all disciples who follow Jesus and bring others to Him. You can take them away but they will come back, and no one can stop them from returning. The movement has overcome every effort to destroy it in countries around the world.  No other men in history have changed the world as they did without armies or weapons or governments or any of the methods of power known on the earth. These men have created unknown, weak men and women who  answered any question ever raised and called for others to follow Him. How did such powerless men gain such great power and how can you lead movements to transform followers as they did? How can men without powerful methods or armies create such movements and make such an impact over such a lasting period of time?

Jesus calls His followers to suffer as He did and to follow Him to accomplish His mission. No opposition can overcome the followers of Jesus as He works through them to build ministries that change hearts.  Jesus accomplishes this through movements in every generation.  He takes ordinary men and women and transforms them to become His kind of leaders by loving them, modeling for them, and teaching them unique ways to form them through the cross, the grave, and His resurrection.

He calls them into His future and His mission, and no opposition can overcome the followers of Jesus as they pursue what really matters: His vision of building a movement that transforms cultures and unifies them as nothing else ever could. Jesus teaches every generation His truths and trains them through His process so they see reality as He enables them to see it.  He calls them to a new and better way that they could only learn through Him. He forms these wrestling and uncertain human beings and makes them into the next generation of His capable and amazing leaders. You are now called to be His kind of leader, the same kind of leader He is.

God desires to give you a heart that is different from the typical leader’s heart, a heart that does not desire individual success and recognition, but rather serves and  sacrifices to meet the needs of others through the cross. The kind of heart that He calls for looks on the genuine needs of others and puts the interests of the weak and needy and lacking ahead of their own. This is why the cross is at the center of leadership for Christ’s followers; their greatest needs cost Him His life because the penalty of sin is death and the way to righteousness is resurrection, and that is the price He paid for each of us.

The central reality of Christ’s kind of leadership is the cross. Jesus led the twelve men He called to follow to Him to take up the cross and then experience the resurrection and live His way. This is His kind of leadership, the daily way to lead His way. Understood properly we see it constantly in Acts in the leadership carried out by Peter, Andrew, James, Paul, and all others as the church started, and then as it is carried out by us, His followers, in our daily lives, especially in the way we conduct our businesses and our regular relationships.

So to be an effective leader you must be a faithful follower of THE Leader How are you doing?

Seeing the old heart in a new way that makes the old leader a new leader

Or

From My Way to the Jesus Way in the 21^st Century

In today’s world there is a great lack of leaders, especially in the church. Would men like Peter, James, John, Andrew and other apostles and early believers be thought of as successful in our day? Do we realize that the only way to be successful in Christ’s world is to serve, not to be powerful nor to be superior nor to be rich? Of course, these are forms of success God can both give and use to make us His kind of leaders as He desires. This is why many regard accomplishments such as fame, recognition, power, money and other achievements as success for leaders. However, the Jesus model of success for His followers is radically different today in the church, even as it always has been.  We must see them only as God’s instruments to accomplish His purposes as He chooses. Remember, these are His instruments and not ours, and we must use them as He wills and not as we will.

After all, our Savior’s instrument of success ended on a cross, hardly thought of as success in the Roman Empire, as we all agree. Just as He could never be thought of as successful to establish His kingdom, neither could the men He called to build the church in the Roman Empire be thought of as achievers. Yet today the same issues of the flesh are in force as they were during Roman rule, and the same solution is needed today.  This means we must become leaders of the cross even as the men and women of the 1^st century did. If we proclaim anything other than the cross we are biblical failures. They are instruments of communication, yes, keys to open doors, ways to enter major opportunities and talk to influential leaders, but not ends of success as seen in other settings.  This is why we need to proclaim the old message of the cross in a new way in our day. We must use the marks of the cross as the instruments of Christ’s truth, even as He did in the 1^st century. This is why the message of the cross of the 21^st century is the same as the message of the 1^st century, just stated in 21^st century language using contemporary illustrations addressed to current needs (the same as the needs of the Roman Empire, just stated in a different way), and addressed to the same sin lived in a new manner. At base, though, 21^st century struggles are the same as 1^st century struggles and solved in exactly the same way, the message of Jesus addressed to every age.

Some years ago, I was part of a team that created an ministry called LEAD, Leader Evaluation and Development. Our method is taken from the Gospels, the old way, formed in a new way.  We helped Leaders Evaluate their ministry And Develop new ways to become more effective than ever before. We did this very effectively with over a thousand leaders who moved forward in amazing ways. This ministry is made up of experienced ministry teams who helped other leaders learn to be more effective than they currently were and also helped them learn how to impact others so they could change their hearts.

We learned that the only way we can help anyone overcome their struggles in their lives is to face them, confess them, seek forgiveness for them, and turn away from the harm they cause. This is a painful process and most leaders are too fearful to carry it out, but those who act this way find that it brings freedom and builds greater leadership opportunities than ever. A large number of both men and women have participated in this message and have experienced great impact through it.

Because these are the most important elements of leadership to face and change, they the primary elements that are often ignored because the demands are so penetrating and distressful and leaders must face deep realities about themselves in moving forward. Thus the greatest leadership struggles are left unfaced and unsolved and become more demanding than ever. The greatest elements you must face in light of this reality is to answer these questions and to seek help from a few whom you trust to help you overcome these great struggles. Consider these questions as some you might need to face and consider with others who know you more deeply than you want to consider.

How well are you overcoming the most demanding changes you need to make?

What are you doing to make the changes you must pursue if you are going to grow as a leader?

How you are you choosing others to help need find those you must consider moving forward as a leader?

What changes are those who know you best seeing in you as an effective leader?

What are the three most significant changes they see that you need to make in you and why? What must you do to take these steps forward?

How willing are you to listen to others who care for you when they criticize you, especially when you have not asked them to criticize you?

Now is the time for you to face your old issues in this new way for God to bless your ministry as a leader as He has never blessed you before.

Now Solomon loved the Lord except . . . (I Kings 3:3)
 
Solomon was the wisest man in the world.

So says God who made him wise at his request.  God also made him wealthy and gave him great honor and promised him long life if Solomon would walk in His ways (I Kings 3:4-14).
 
His wisdom and wealth became legendary in the ancient world, so legendary that the Queen of Sheba came to see if all she heard was true and she was not disappointed (II Chron. 9:1-12).
 
Solomon became wise because, as a young man, he recognized his lack of wisdom and his inability to be king without God’s help, so he was a humble man who fully accepted his limitations and his need for God’s enablement.
 
In his wisdom Solomon recognized God’s greatness and exalted Him far above all others before his entire nation which gathered to honor God and dedicate the temple the king built.  He showed he knew God and he prayed to Him in humility and dependence as few men have ever done (I Kings 8:1-53; II Chron. 6:1-39).  What great insight!  How could a young man know God so well apart from His grace?
 
Solomon was also a brilliant writer who helped to create an entire genre of ancient writings called Wisdom Literature, writings that communicate insight into life and how to live in healthy and wholesome ways.  He wrote parts of the Psalms, most of Proverbs, and all of Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, and his writings continue to be recognized as some of the wisest in all of history even to this very day.
 
Truly Solomon was the wisest man in the world—not in theoretical wisdom, but in living wisdom, in wisdom that teaches us all how to live well. Yet Solomon, in his old age, became an idolatrous man, a leader who worshipped many foreign gods, who turned his heart from the one true God to false gods. 
 
Amazing, isn’t it, that a young man who was so utterly dependent on God could grow to become an old man totally taken up with idols?
 
Solomon also was a murderous man.  When he became old and near death, God told him that He was not going to give the throne to his son, Rehoboam, but to another man, a man God never named, (I Kings 11:9-13), but a man whom Solomon knew.  It was not hard for Solomon to figure out who God’s chosen successor was because he himself had recognized the talent and dedication of the man and had promoted him to leadership in the kingdom.  He was Jeroboam, the son of a widow, who had grown up without a father, but who had proven himself through his courage in battle and industrious effort in service.  These attributes brought him to Solomon’s attention, and the king had appointed him as a leader over some very important projects (I Kings 11:26-27).  How ironic that the man Solomon discovered and appointed for his purposes became the man God selected and appointed for His purposes.  Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon, so the king set out to murder him, forcing him flee as an outlaw to Egypt (I Kings 11:40).
 
How can it be that a man who was radically committed to God in his youth, who became the wisest man in the world, and then became one of the most idolatrous men of his age, ended his life a murderous man, striving to kill God’s anointed?  What happened to set him on this disastrous course?  Could this happen to us?  Not that we would become murderers, but that we would seek to destroy others who threaten us. Haven’t all of us seen this happen to others?  What made Solomon do this and what might make us do the same thing?
 
It all starts with one simple word and progresses to the core reality of every leader.  As with many other simple words, it is very easy to overlook, though it introduces us to the key to Solomon’s life and helps us understand how the wisest man in the world became an idolatrous and murderous man, though he could still teach us truth about God.  And it should alert us to the reality that this terrible downward progression could happen in our leadership as well.  This word opens up the door to Solomon’s life and takes us into the essence of his failure as a leader.
 
To see this word look at II Kings 3:3 where we read, “Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father, David, except . . .”
 
There it is.  Solomon loved the Lord and for all outward appearances he was God’s man in every way with one exception:  he worshipped where he wasn’t supposed to worship.  Tragically that exception became the rule in Solomon’s life.  He had a heart for the true God, but there was room in his heart for false gods.  At first it was not a major concern in Solomon’s life, but ultimately it became the reality that brought him down.
 
Actually it was at a high place that God met Solomon in a dream to give him whatever he wanted as king.  Once Solomon asked for wisdom, God gave him an understanding heart and, even though he had not asked for these things, God also gave him riches and honor and promised him long life if he walked God’s way (I Kings 3:4-15).  And the very next thing Solomon did was leave the high place and go directly to the tabernacle where he offered sacrifices to cover his sin as he sought to deepen his relationship with God.
 
At that point in his life, Solomon was truly committed to God; idolatry wasn’t at the center of his life—but it was off to the side.  God occupied the primary place in all that Solomon did “except . . .”
 
Still that “except . . .” was in force.
 
What are the exceptions in your life, the high places of self-reliance and false worship that you hold back from God even though you appear to honor God?  What are the ways that you act independently of God and go your own way, even though, in most of your life, you are committed to Him?  We have Solomon-like secrets, the exceptions that lead us into idolatry and, if never faced, will bring us down in shame, even as they did Solomon.  You can see those high places in your fear and your anger, in your harmful competition and your personal ambition, in your drives and your longings, in your demands and expectations, in the times when you turn from God to self and mask it all in the name of Jesus.  And you can be sure that these high places will bring you down, even as they did Solomon. Be aware of the reality that the high places in your heart may be the low places of your heart.
 
So answer this question as a leader. What is the “except” that you hide in your life? Do you truly think you are hiding it? Do you really think God doesn’t see it? And how can you lead God’s people this way? Could it be that you are only hiding your idols from yourself and no one else? Idolatry is like that, you know. Only hidden from the idolator, but no one else. Think about this.

Why do we seek to find a leader, someone who enables us to be ourselves and accomplish our desires? Or why do we seek to be a leader, a person who strives to have others follow us?

It can be someone who will solve our problems, meet our needs, free us from struggles, make us successful, resolve our problems, make life what we want it to be. That’s what a leader does, you know. A leader is a person who releases us to gain all that we want to accomplish and remove everything that holds us back. A leader arranges our situations, so we are free to live in peace, to be effective and fruitful, to be what we want to be, to live the way we want to live, and who never lets anything hold us back. You see, a leader is someone who wants everything the way we want life to be and who enables us to achieve our deepest desires. That’s what a lot of us think a leader does.

Many, perhaps even most, think that a leader turns the rugged forest of life into the smooth fields of opportunity and gives them in a smooth and easy form, so the followers have only to live them and all is well. That’s what the people of tribe of Joseph wanted in ancient Israel (Joshua 16:16-20). They desired to have them already done and take cared of so all they had to do was move in and take over. They didn’t even want to have to trust God to face resistance or earn their ownership; they didn’t want to have to resist those who were opposed to them or who were stronger than they were or smarter than they were or cleverer than they were. They wanted everything handed over to them. Leaders simply don’t work that way most of the time. Oh, they may at times, but very often they don’t because they can’t. They may have to plan, to negotiate, to make arrangements, to earn the opportunity, and then to hold on to the decision and even to face resistance. That’s leadership, and there’s no denying it. That spirit is at the very heart of leadership.

On the other hand, we may want to be in charge, the one who makes the decisions, gets others to do what we tell him or her to do and have us act without hesitation or protest or opposition. Just do it—and do it right! Which is our way, or course. We want to have followers because we’re the leader. What a great life that is. No questions, no hesitation, no resistance, no doubt, just do it. Listen and do it because I am the leader.

Period!

The problem is Jesus is not like that. In fact, Jesus is exactly the opposite of that. He is righteous, holy, forgiving, radically different, totally unlike us. He is kind, patient, long suffering, faithfully, clear, demanding, correcting, firm, demanding of us—all the things we don’t want to have or be. That’s the reason why we struggle so much to follow Him. We want to follow Him, but we struggle greatly when we discover what it means to be His follower, when we realize that it really means we follow Him and that means we trust Him to do what He wants us to do by doing He wants to do through us! Leadership means followership.

Either way we say I want a leader or I want to be the leader,  yet sooner or later we’ll discover that we have to face the reality of what this means for us: we will have to face our key issue, our hearts.

That’s exactly what Samul, God’s leader discovered when at God’s direction he came to Jesse to choose a man for Israel as a result of Saul’s failure. Saul was once God’s choice to follow as Israel’s leader but he failed, and God had chosen another man to be the country’s leader. So Samuel, God’s man to anoint His new leader for His people, was sent to the family of Jesse in the town of Bethlehem to anoint His new man, one of Jesse’s sons. Jesse’s oldest son was strong, well-built, handsome, obviously the right man, but God said no. The man looked great on the outside, but God looked at the inside for His kind of leader. As Samuel discovered,

. . . man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (I Samuel 16:7).

It’s not what impresses us about the appearance or the skills or the gifts or the impression of a man or woman that makes someone a leader, but what’s in the heart, what we can’t see but God can and what He will make known when the time is right. So all of Jesse’s men met each of the qualified men he had for leadership but none of these men were qualified to be His kind of leaders, a reality they discovered when he went to meet them. They did not see the men protect the sheep from the wolves or the bears nor  sing the psalms or write the messages or know what any of them cried out from their hearts, but God could, and that’s what God said made him the leader He would grow Him into and deliver His people as a true leader.

He wanted them to be true leaders, protectors of those who had to take great risks for His sheep, who had to provide for water, give them nights of sleep and rest at night, guide them through times of peace and calm, take them through rough water to calm waters—provide of the care for sheep in seasons of provision of harmony. David knew these demands, the Father saw all of this in a very special way, and that’s what mattered to Him.

David saw all of this as a holy calling to leadership from God for His purposes and only His kind of man can carry this out. He wants His leaders—men and women—to carry it out in the lives of their followers in order to make a difference in their influence as leaders. The point is that they need to make a difference fulfilling His purposes the same way He is forming in them, so they become His kind of leaders. You have to understand that being the great successes you strive to be is not nearly as important to God and His kingdom as the actual person you become. The problem is that you treat the means as the end, success as the aim rather than the process to the aim. The Father wants our role as leaders to be the process to becoming like Christ rather than the purpose that the Father has for us. He wants us to grow in His image, not only to create what we do. What we do is His means; becoming like Christ is His end. Thus being a leader it is far more important to become the kind of person He wants you to be than to do what you think makes you famous or successful. Both are essential, and we must pursue both, but many of us strive to avoid the price we must pay to accomplish God’s purpose. God doesn’t.

While He made us to do the things He wants us to do, He made us to be men and women in His image, to serve as His leaders, to make a difference for Him. This is why our hearts are the vital reality of our being, the key to our minds and our hands. This is why Jesus came to transform our hearts, not merely to make us brilliant and talented. This is why who we are is the key to what we do as leaders.

This is why man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart is the vital reality of being a leader and following a leader. Don’t ever forget it!