As I sit here at my desk and glance to my left, I see a whole section section of books on the topic of “leadership.” I must have several dozen of them. I also have several of these books on my desk, about two feet away from me, including The Leadership Challenge, We Shall Not Fail (about the leadership of Winston Churchill), and Lincoln on Leadership. Leadership and its related components is a hot topic among not only ministers, but educators, business professionals, and just about every other segment of society.
Here’s what I find interesting: in all of the instructions in the New Testament, and in the words of Jesus in the Gospels, we don’t find very much specific material about leadership. We do, however, find lots of material about what it means to follow Jesus and live our faith in the day-to-day world.
There is a great deal of conversation these days about how the church needs better leaders. Of course we need good leadership; that is a given. But what we really need are better followers. We need leaders who follow Jesus. In other words, we need people who are disciples first, and leaders second.
Jesus never said, “Go lead.” Instead, he said “Follow me.” We are called first and foremost to be followers, and then to be leaders. The funny thing is, I’ve had plenty of training on leadership–innumerable conferences, books, lessons, sermons, you name it–but precious little on “followership” (or what is called “discipleship” in the Bible). Ironically, the better we follow, the better we’ll lead.
I think we should put a moratorium on all the conferences, books and training related to leadership until we can all learn to follow Jesus just a little bit better.
great stuff – absolutely correct
I am so with you. I heard a commercial this morning for a women’s leadership conference. The theme: We Are All Leaders. Sorry, folks, we’re not all leaders–at least not all at the same time. Following is good.