Heart of A Leader

At our last Discipleship for Leadership we took some time to look at the heart of a Leader. We saw that leaders are pro-active. They own the vision of the organizations they are a part of. A team that only responds in a reactionary way will lead a movement into maintenance mode. This is where a lot of churches and organizations find themselves. If you are going to lead you have to be pro-actionary (I may have just made up that word, but it works). Vision, vibrancy, life and health all stem from proactivity. You may be a pastor, parent, business person, student, or part of a team when it comes to leading in those environments you have to take some time to work on your vision for the future and not just react to the present. If you don't you will get stuck in your present and stagnation will follow.

Number two leaders are resilient. They bounce back and recover strength after facing obstacles to their vision. Resiliency comes from owning the vision deeply. John and Peter upon threat of life declared "We can't help but speak what we have seen and heard (concerning Jesus)" The disciples of Christ all but John (he just had boiling oil poured on him and exiled to an island) died striving to accomplish the vision. Myself and every believer today are testament of the fact that they succeeded.

Third quality, leaders are compassionate. Some leadership schools paint the leader as one who runs over everyone with their agenda. A Christian leader needs to lead like Christ. Christ was compassionate.... he felt deeply where people were and because of that related to them and led them to where they needed to be.

Finally I told our leaders that leaders are fallible. I gave them permission to make mistakes. Anytime you are moving a head, trying new things, being visionary you're going to make mistakes now and then. Leaders are not paralyzed by the fear of failure, but they take chances attempting to do things that are not the status quo.

As a pastor I don't expect my leaders to be perfect in every action or idea but I do expect them to be 1. pro-active 2. resilient and 3. compassionate.