The Faces of Leadership
John
Maxwell said something that I am totally in agreement with, he
said that the failure or success of any organization depends
on its leadership. As important as the need for competent
leadership is, the subject on the other hand has not received
the amount of attention it deserves. Few universities let
alone Bible schools or seminaries offer this subject as a
complete program. Few that have realized its importance offer
it as one of the courses within a program.
As
I have been observing the body of Christ, being a Pastor
myself, I have had many instances where I felt that the Church
needs to revisit the issue of training competent leaders.
There are quite a number of secular graduate schools for
business leadership that are doing a fabulous job of training
business executives on effective leadership models. The Church
on the other hand is doing very little in tackling this
important subject.
As
a matter of fact, writing this article is very therapeutic to
me because it is drawn from a desire that has been mounting in
me for years. My desire for leadership development has reached
levels where I am now geared to do a postgraduate degree on
the subject. My desire for effective and competent leadership
has led me to search the bible to find some principles and
models of effective leadership. In a few words let us see what
a leader must be to succeed at his or her leadership
responsibility. Allow me to say that effective leadership is
both being and doing. Our article will only tackle the aspect
of being.
For
our Te
xt on the subject, let us see Revelation 4:7
Rev
4:6
"And
before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal:
and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne,
were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the
first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf,
and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast
was like a flying eagle."
I
know that allegory is one of the most unreliable ways of
interpreting the bible. Many well meaning people have gone
into error trying to do that. However, in certain cases it is
allowed to allegorize. Paul used it when talking about Sarah
and Hagar in Galatians 4:22-31. Allegorically speaking, our
text gives me 4 basic characteristics of competent leadership.
I see every face as an attitude a leader should take in
different circumstances. The four faces of the creature in
this passage gives us some insight into the subject of what a
leader should be.
Let
us start with the face of the eagle in the creatures of our
text. I would like to mention that a leader needs the
qualities of an eagle. The eagle has so many good qualities
and the scope of this article won’t allow me to mention all
of them. Nonetheless, I will draw some lessons from 4 of this
great bird’s qualities.
The
first lesson from the eagle comes to us from its great vision.
It is believed that from hundreds of meters above the ground,
the eagle can see a tiny movement made by its prey. A leader
must have vision for him or her to succeed. The nature of the
work of a leader makes it imperative that he or she leads with
vision or else there is going to be disillusionment in the
people being led after they see that they are going nowhere.
The
eagle is also a good example of what patience can do. The
eagle spends time in the air circling looking down sometimes
for hours trying to spot a movement in the grass or in water
in case of a fish eagle. A leader who does not have patience
will find the whole expedition of being a leader a frustrating
one because sometimes things do not materialize according to
schedule. Jack Hayford, the Pastor of the Church On the Way in
California
said, “Don’t keep your eyes on the calendar, keep them on
the vision”. What this means is that, if you are impatient
with results, you may not get them altogether. What you need
is to do all the right things and wait patiently for results,
which may not come immediately.
Another
very commonly known characteristic of the eagle is about its
skills with the wind. The eagle is not like other birds, which
flap their wings to fly. No wonder it is said to mount on
wings and not fly on wings. (Isaiah 40:31). It does this by
waiting on either a rock or tree for wind currents which only
the eagle understands and when it senses a right wind it
spreads its wings and the wind trapped in the wings sends it
into flight. A good leader is one who is able to spot
opportunity. It is said that Issachar was a leader among the
tribes of
Israel
because he understood the time. (1 Chronicles 12:32; Esther 1:
13 ). As a leader, decisions must be made carefully and that
needs the skill of mounting on opportunity. It is good to have
foresight, but it is also just as important to know what time
one is living in to have maximum impact.
Last
but not least, the eagle only eats fresh meat. This means that
the eagle kills its own meat. There is quite a number of
people who think they are leaders but they are a group of
opportunistic individuals who won’t do anything on their
own. A leader must always be ready to do things alone, if one
cant do things alone, they should not sign up for leadership.
Sometimes as a leader you will have to do everything alone.
The
other animal in the faces of the creature in our text is the
lion. Allow me to make a comment about this great animal
before looking at its individual qualities. Like eagles, lions
don’t flock. You can’t say I found a herd of lions.
Leaders are the same. While there is a theory that everyone is
a leader, I would like to say it differently. My opinion is
that everyone can be a leader, but we will always have few
because of the nature of the responsibility hence only few
manage to become leaders.
Of
many great qualities in a lion, my favorite are just two. The
first one being the lion’s ability to select its individual
animal to kill before attacking. A lion does not go into a
herd of say Zebras and start chasing them and then wish that
one of them would be food for the day. Before attacking, a
lion goes near the herd and selects which one it will attack.
After this, it will try and isolate the selected target from
the rest and then attack. When the attack does not yield
intended results it stops and goes through the selection
process again.
I
find this very interesting because as a leader, you can not go
for every opportunity that comes your way. A leader needs to
know what it is he will do and not do. There are a lot of so
called leaders that are trying to do everything and at the end
of the day do nothing. They see a Pastor prospering with
business people, they start a business people’s fellowship.
They see another doing well with the students, they also start
student ministries. As a leader, one must stick to their call
and find what works within the call. A leader doesn’t have
to try out everything. This is a recipe for failure. Carefully
plan and execute. When you fail, go through the whole process
of carefully planning and then executing the new or revised
plans
Another
quality of the lion that just fascinates me is that a lion
does not kill for fun. It does not go around killing animals
to prove that it is a lion. It is actually said that a lion
can stay for days without killing if it has a good meal. This
means that it will be seeing animals pass by and wont attack
just for the fun of it. As a leader, we should be delivered
from the terrible spirit competition. It is the spirit of
competition, which causes people to do certain things God
never told them to do. I am convinced that even Churches have
been started and God never sent those Pastors to plant those
Churches. To do something just so you can prove a point is a
sign of low self esteem and as a leader you can not afford to
have low self esteem. Do only what must be done and rest,
don’t look at what the other leader is doing and then
compete.
Now
we should look at the third face in the creature, which is the
ox. To me the ox comes out as an animal normally used for
work. In biblical times the ox was used for manual labour.
There are lessons we can draw from this animal concerning
leadership. As one who had an opportunity to grow up in the
village myself, I saw first hand what this animal can do and
its attitude towards manual labour.
Firstly,
I must say that a trained ox does not get forced to go into
the yoke. A very well trained ox comes to the yoke
willingly when you bring the yoke to the kraal. I know people
in my village who have such well trained oxen that they fight
over the yoke to go into the field. A leader must be willing
to work. Someone once said, “ a leader must be willing to
roll his sleeves and get dirty”. We have so many leaders
today that won’t do that. Actually, no one must be put in a
position of leadership if they are not willing to get dirty.
Secondly,
the ox does not run away from the field. I have seen tired
animals myself lie on the field and wake up to continue with
the work, surely that is abuse from the owners, but my point
is that this animal loves work. A leader must be willing to
put in the hours that are needed. Laziness is not for those
who want to be leaders. Because of the nature of the
responsibility, the leader will sometimes have to work more
than the average person does. It’s a pity that the opposite
is usually the case, the followers do more work than the
leader.
While
I believe in working hard, I also believe that you can not
just work hard for the sake of working hard, that is called
abuse. God expects us to work intelligently too. Psalm
127:1-2, encourages us to work smart. It makes it clear that
unless you work smart, your work will just be drudgery because
at the end of the day God will bless those He loves. So there
is no need to just stay up late doing work that does not make
sense just so people may say you are a hard worker. An
effective leader works both hard and smart
Last
but not the least of the faces is that of a human being. The
face of a human being on the creature stands for a number of
qualities. To start with, a leader must have a sense of humor.
You can’t take yourself too seriously all the time. Put on a
human face. It does a lot of good to laugh and sometimes even
laughing at yourself. There are leaders who think that if they
can put a serious face and scare everyone it means they are
good leaders. A leader must also have sometime when he can
just let it out and have some good “fun”.
Thirdly,
as a human face, a leader must be approachable. People must be
able to feel that they can approach you as leader no matter
what. It is amazing that in the church there is a spirit that
has come in which is making leaders unapproachable. To be
approachable does not mean that you will see everyone, it
simply means that people you are leading are able at the
appropriate time and in appropriate circumstances to feel free
to have an audience with you as their leader. The Lord is a
very good example of this; people of all status in society
could approach him and feel welcome. At times He was even
accused of socializing with “the wrong” People. This is
totally different from what we see today.
The
other most important thing about the human face is that a
leader is sometimes also a husband, father, brother, son etc.
These relationships should not suffer because of the
leadership responsibility. While you are a leader, take time
to be a good husband, father etc. We have heard stories
of Pastors whose wives call them “Pastor” and whose
children are fighting for their attention. This is
unacceptable as a leader.
In
conclusion, let me say that the faces of the creature in the
passage may not theologically mean what this article portrays
but as a theologian myself I took some liberty to allegorize
as I said earlier. The leadership responsibility may put so
much pressure on ones life that other important areas of life
start to suffer. The success of this great task is in the
balance of the faces. Make sure to consciously put on the
right face in the right circumstance. A wrong face in the
wrong circumstance may have far reaching implications. In
executing the leadership function, ones effectiveness depends
on how these faces are won. As an eagle have vision, cease
opportunities, as a lion plan and be confident not to be
competitive, as an ox work both hard and smart and then as a
man be yourself. Don’t take life as a punishment, take time
to unwind and laugh and like they say it, take time to smell
the roses.
By
Pastor Ken
Capital
Christian
Ministries
International
P.
O
Box
10445
Centurion
0046
Pretoria
0001
Tel:
+27 12 667 3904
Fax:
+27 12 667 3887
Cell:
+27 72 423 6990
|
