When I was a youngster, I grew up around church with all the religious sounding words and concepts. Growing up when and where I did, words like repentance, baptism, faith and reconciliation were pretty commonplace. I may have even been able to say words like “propitiation”, but it probably took a few more years to full appreciate their concepts. While I was familiar with many of the spiritually sounding words, I may not have been as entuned to them as I could have been. Take for example, the word “love”. What did it mean to “love your neighbor”? I think I was in high school when my mom provided a simple definition of love when she said it was wanting the best for the people around you. Wow – that made the idea of biblical love so much easier to grasp.
Over the last few years, I have done a lot of work in the area of leadership. In fact, I have even become adept at using some of the terms such as “servant leadership”, “resonant leadership” … even “level five leadership”. But what do they mean? I have recently headed back to my mother’s logic from years ago to apply it to the concept of leadership. Like love, leadership is wanting the best for the people around you. When reduced to that common denominator, leadership not only becomes understandable, it becomes doable! Interestingly, I have found a common connection between love and leadership – one that comes straight from the New Testament. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (I Corinthians 13:4-7). Couldn’t he have easily written, “Leadership is …”?
If we are looking to become leaders, let’s make sure we understand what it is all about. When we do, not only will we be able to do it; we’ll be able to do it well.