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Many leadership books talk about certain qualities or characteristics needed for effective leadership. When asked if one needs the proper strengths to take on a leadership role, Henry Blackaby replied, “That’s an interesting concept, but it’s not biblically sound. Name for me one leader in the Bible whom the Lord called who was qualified! Every one of them, including Moses and Mary, claimed in one way or the other that they were the wrong person for the job. The reality is the Lord never calls the qualified; He qualifies the called.”
Let’s explore Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges’ advice for aspiring servant leaders:
The Heart of a Servant Leader
EGO is used to describe both servant leaders and self-serving leaders. For servant leaders, EGO is “Exalting God Only”, which provides humility and confidence. In his leadership best seller Good to Great, Jim Collins says a leader with a humble heart looks out the window to find and applaud the true causes of success and in the mirror to find and accept responsibility for failure.
Jesus modeled the heart of a true servant leader by investing most of His ministry time training and equipping disciples for leadership. Interestingly, the term “leader” appears 6 times in the King James Version of the Bible while “servant” appears 900 times.
For self-serving leaders, it’s “Edging God Out”. Edging God Out generally comes from pride & fear, which separate us from God, from each other, and us from ourselves. The root cause of toxic fear is a lie that tells us we are not safe playing things God’s way and we are going to miss out on something good. The authors point out one good way to describe fear—it is False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR).
Blanchard & Hodges note that most leadership books focus on the leader’s behavior, but they’ve found that effective leadership starts on the inside—it is a heart issue.
The Head of a Servant Leader
Jesus exemplified two parts of servant leadership: visionary role (setting the course & direction) and implementation role (doing things right with a focus on serving).
For the visionary role, see my last blog post. In setting your view of the future, it is important to distinguish between goals and vision. A goal is a specific event that, once achieved, becomes a piece of history to be superseded by a new goal. A vision is an ongoing, evolving, hopeful look into the future that stirs the hearts and minds of people who know they will never see its end or limit. A compelling vision tells people who they are, whose they are, where they are going, and what will guide their journey.
True success in servant leadership depends on how clearly the values are defined, ordered, and lived by the leader. Jesus gave us an example when, in Matthew 22:36-40, He rank ordered two values: (1) Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and (2) Love your neighbor as yourself.
The Hands of a Servant Leader
Jesus was a performance coach, who changed his leadership style appropriately as His disciples developed individually and as a group. He followed Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model, understanding where his followers were in their development—novice, apprentice, journeyman, and master/teacher—and providing leadership appropriate to their situation.
Performance coaching is key to servant leadership and involves: performance planning; day-to-day coaching; and performance evaluation—focus is helping people get “A’s”. For a deeper explanation, see Blanchard’s Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A”.
The Habits of a Servant Leader
Jesus accomplished his mission by applying five key habits: solitude; prayer; study and application of scripture; accepting and responding to God’s unconditional love; and involvement in supportive relationships. Like Jesus, we all need active truth-tellers in our lives to keep us accountable and moving in the right direction.
Henry Blackaby sums it up well in his book Spiritual Leadership when he says, “Some spiritual leaders try to be more committed. What they need is to be more submitted.” We need to submit our lives to the leadership of Jesus Christ…only then will we truly Lead Like Jesus!