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The title and theme for this book come from this passage in Ezekiel:
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ” Ezekiel 37:4–6
Let’s lead as if people’s lives depend on our leadership, because they do. Let’s pour life into others to build a life-giving legacy of leadership. There is no greater pursuit for our leadership than to seek first the kingdom and to lead from that posture. God will serve alongside you, and it will be the most fulfilling adventure of your life. People are worth your best.
You Are Uniquely Created to Lead
The simple truth is that God gave each of us a distinct personality and wired every person for a specific purpose.
Do you know anyone who walked away from his or her faith because of Jesus? Probably not, but you probably know many who walked away because of the poor leadership of those who represent Jesus. When Christian leaders operate in a posture that benefits only them and not the people around them, it can inhibit and damage the faith of other people.
Jesus gives us the best picture of how leaders should lead: leadership should focus on bringing life to others. Christian leaders should be the best leaders in the world because we have the best Leader in history teaching us. We have the Creator infusing creativity into us. We have the Holy Spirit guiding us and giving us wisdom.
The best leader is one who continually extends grace rather than requiring it from others. Leaders who consistently change the flow of grace will lose influence.
When leaders steward the small amount of influence they have in a God-honoring, life-giving way, it is no surprise when they are handed more influence and more opportunities to bring hope to others. Everyone has influence over someone. Great leadership involves stewarding or managing that influence over others to the best of our ability.
Statistics indicate that more than 65 percent of working adults would choose a new boss over a pay increase.
You Are Divinely Called to Lead
Author and pastor Andy Stanley said that “following Jesus will make your life better and make you better at life.” Jesus makes us better at leadership too.
People’s faith is affected by how you lead and serve. As a Jesus follower, you could derail someone’s faith journey by mishandling a situation.
Life-giving leadership is all about staying in deep relationship with our heavenly Father so we can love those around us best and bring life to the people God has put in our circle of influence.
More importantly, many people will determine how to integrate faith into their lives based on how you lead. If we are to bring life to those around us, we have to lead from this place of calling! There is no other way.
Choosing to put others before yourself is life-giving leadership. It involves following Jesus by never divorcing how you lead from your faith.
Part One: Leading from Your Truest Self
It’s not just that others matter; it’s that you matter. You matter especially to your leadership.
Life-Giving Leaders Lead from Their Truest Selves
When leaders use practices or pursuits untrue to who they are, the flow of life can be blocked or diverted. When you don’t lead from your truest self, you are blocked from serving others to your fullest potential.
At the end of people’s live, people were questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently. Some common themes surfaced again and again, including, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
Jesus Christ talks of living to the fullest now, while you’re becoming the person you want to be and He wants you to be. Jesus died for the you that God knit together. That’s who Jesus loves: you. That’s who He wants to have a life filled with joy and abundance: you.
Leaders, you cannot give what you do not have. If you are depleted of life and grace, you cannot give it. It will not flow from you, and you cannot have a lasting influence without consistent flow.
Jesus describes Himself as the vine with us as the branches in John 15:1–5 and explains, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” The vine-branch relationship needs both parties. In this teaching, Jesus is emphasizing the importance of being connected.
This is the basis of life-giving leadership. If we’re not connected to Jesus, and if we’re not connected to one another, life will never flow from the leader to other people.
Life-Giving Leaders Embrace Their Uniqueness
As pastor and author Andy Stanley has said, “Anyone who can predict their own death and resurrection and pull it off…I’ll believe what they believe.”
David is recognized as one of the greatest leaders of ancient Israel, and today the greatest leaders in the world have figured out that great leadership is faith-based leadership.
Leaders, you were made uniquely for a unique purpose. Your design and your leadership can’t be separated. All the parts of your personality and your leadership—even the things you wish you could change—are intentional. They are designed for your purpose.
Part Two: Releasing the Life Giver Within You
Consider this dictionary definition of authentic: “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character; is sincere and authentic with no pretensions.”
Life-giving leadership begins with self-awareness and self-acceptance, nonnegotiable hallmarks of authentic leadership. Three additional streams flow into your river of influence. They are self-confidence, humility, and health.
Life-Giving Leaders Are Self-Aware
Self-awareness is the foundation for a lifetime of leading well. Knowing yourself unlocks your leadership potential. Conversely, a lack of self-awareness will hurt your leadership potential before it gets off the ground.
In the 1990s Daniel Goleman wrote one of the most important leadership articles in decades. The Harvard Business Review published “What Makes a Leader?,” which introduced the world to a game-changing concept: emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EQ) quickly became foundational for leadership.
Here’s a one-sentence summary, “The best leaders in the world are those who are best at leading people.”
Leaders who choose to deflect and look at other people’s issues instead of their own will not be life-giving. They will have a short-lived influence at best. Life-giving leaders take responsibility and are then normally given more responsibility. When you own it, you get more of it.
Leaders are learners. And the best leaders work hard to learn about themselves. Consider these 7 areas of awareness that are critical to your leadership:
- Emotional Awareness
- Awareness of History: If we fail to study how our history affects the way we act and respond, we won’t be prepared for circumstances outside our control.
- Awareness of Relational Tendencies and Keys: Learning about yourself through assessments, coaching, and evaluations lets you give new people relational keys and understandings up front.
- Awareness of Confrontation Style: Great leaders understand they have to cut conflict off quickly and at the source.
- Awareness of Your Posture: When leaders have a positive posture, they usually gain favor with those around them. Smiling, active listening, sitting up straight, and paying attention are examples of posture that make others notice you. Ask around and find out how you’re perceived. Figure out when people can tell you’re not listening.
- Awareness of Your Tone: Life-giving leaders aim for positive and life-giving tone. The other person is not forced to guess your emotional state.
- Awareness of Your Motivation: Awareness opens the way for life to flow. And then influence grows.
Life-Giving Leaders Are Self-Accepting
Self-acceptance is very likely one of the hardest leadership obstacles you’ll ever tackle.
Out of all the steps to life-giving leadership, this is the one where most leaders get stuck. Some will need to seek professional help to overcome the emotions attached to accepting who we are. Here are four keys to self-acceptance:
- Learn to Love Yourself: If we don’t accept who God made us to be, we will never receive the true gift He has given us. You also need to accept your spiritual style. Gary Thomas’s book Sacred Pathways is one of my favorites on a person’s unique worship style and connection with God.
- Stop Chasing Other People’s Uniqueness: We know we should never compare ourselves with anyone else. You are the only you alive.
- Seek Freedom from Wrong Expectations
- Recognize That Integrity Lies at the Root of Acceptance: Many leaders are desperate for a leader to be consistent and for a leader who is worth following. A leader who doesn’t pretend to be someone else is a leader who is consistent. These are hallmarks of life-giving leaders.
Here are a few ideas for the next steps in accepting your leadership:
- Ask the Lord for peace.
- Invite a few close friends to help you see the unique leadership gifts God has given you.
- Choose one unique attribute of your leadership that you decide to accept and take pride in, and then lean into that strength this week.
Life-Giving Leaders Are Self-Confident
Life-giving leadership requires you to lead confidently from your truest self and to trust that you have what it takes to make it happen, to finish the project, to develop the staff, to make wise financial plans and decisions, and to bring life to the people you lead. When you lead confidently, people have a sense that you are going somewhere and they want to go with you.
So how do we overcome these obstacles to become more confident? We focus on practice and prayer. First, you will never become confident without practicing the art of trusting yourself. Trusting your God-given abilities and intellect, and trusting your experience and learning, will help you make wise decisions. Second, we have to work through these areas in prayer.
There are three main ways to build confidence:
- Lay a Biblical Foundation for Your Confidence: When we keep our eyes on Jesus, we see people the way we are supposed to. We know to see people as His mission to love the world. That builds our confidence in how He wants to partner with us. When you trust that the principles in Scripture are true and that they work, your confidence grows. Your belief in what God says is true.
- Trust Your Strengths: Author, speaker, and leadership guru John Maxwell has spoken at length about the importance of working from within your strengths. Leadership expert Marcus Buckingham has written books that help leaders discover their strengths so they can operate from a basis of strength. Pastor Andy Stanley has taught on the topic of leaning into your strengths to lead at your very best.
- Grow in Your Weaknesses: As we lead from our strengths, we also have to pay attention to our weaknesses. Your weaknesses force you to think differently. Life-giving leaders don’t try to turn a weakness into a strength, but they work hard to know their weaknesses and improve them. They strive to become well-balanced.
Confidence without arrogance builds trust for your leadership in the people around you, and it builds trust within yourself. Life-giving leaders who are confident without being arrogant will make the leaders around them better because of trust.
Life-Giving Leaders Are Humble
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Every now and then you get knocked off the artificial pedestal you’ve put yourself on. And it’s a good thing. Humility is a teacher that will change your life. But learning from it is brutally difficult. On the other hand, humility is a daily choice.
Humility is the only step in the process of becoming a life-giving leader in which you make the choice to focus on something outside yourself and your personality. Humility involves choosing to live for something bigger than yourself.
As the writer of Proverbs observed, “Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the LORD, and humility comes before honor” (15:33, NIV).
Look at what Romans 12:3 (NIV) explains, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Humility is a choice to appreciate God’s gifts in your life, but with sober judgment.
Humble leaders attract people. Humble leaders position themselves in ways to make the team around them better. Here are a few ways to pursue humility as a life-giving leader:
- Be Intentional. Humility doesn’t happen haphazardly. Leaders who develop it are intentional about putting other people first. They live for something bigger than themselves.
- Learn to Receive. If you can’t receive encouragement, appreciation, or gifts from others, it can work against the humility you’re trying to build. Life-giving leaders learn to see gifts as gifts rather than as payment. Maintaining that perspective is crucial to staying humble.
- Gratitude Is the Best Attitude. Here’s a dictionary definition of attitude: “A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior.” If you keep gratefulness at the center of your thinking, you will see an attitude of gratitude. Humility will follow, and you will be thankful.
Life-Giving Leaders Are Healthy
Good health can help protect us from burnout. And yet it’s still tough to avoid soft drinks, lower our caffeine intake, and eat gluten-free. Who wants to become another statistic representing another leader lost to ministry and mission because he or she preferred to take an unhealthy route?
When the leader is well, the team can tell.
Pastor and author Craig Groeschel said taking care of his body became a spiritual issue for him. He wanted to honor God with his body so he could do what God has in store for him. It was a heart issue, not a body issue. (That sounds similar to Pastor Steve Reynolds’ journey to a Bod4God.)
Is a balance between work and life possible? Rather than balance, we are shooting for a work/life rhythm. We can plan for the rhythm and flow of our seasons.
Life-giving leaders give life to their friends, and their friends should be a reservoir of grace and life for the leaders.
Dr. Sam Chand said, “Stress is going to go somewhere. Either you decide where it goes or it will decide. If you let stress find its own relief, you will lose every time.” As a leader, you have to have great hobbies. Hobbies are a great way to relieve stress in a healthy way.
We wouldn’t have a conversation about health without talking about diet and exercise.
Scripture is pretty clear: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20, NIV).
We need to be intentional about taking care of our bodies so we can use them to glorify God and bring life to others.
Part Three: Core Behaviors of Life-Giving Leaders
Life-giving leaders embrace four calls to: Sweat, Sacrifice, Surrender, and Serve.
1. A Call to Sweat: Life-Giving Leaders Work Selflessly
Many of you must be thinking, Really? A call to sweat? That’s pretty gross. When you grow up in the South, you get used to sweating. It’s a call to work hard. To sweat alongside your team.
Life-giving leadership does not happen when you’re sitting on the sideline either at work or on the field. Engaging in hard work will always bear fruit.
Listen, leader. Hard work will always be a requirement of life-giving leadership.
Success and leadership require massive amounts of sweat and hustle.
Martin Luther King Jr. once gave a speech about working hard in every area of your life, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”
Long hours should be for a season, not forever. However, leaders who aren’t willing to put in the hours when necessary will never become the life-giving leaders we are called to be.
Get out of your office and walk around the building to see what you can help with. Clean the dishes in the break room. People will faint when they see you do it. You can create a life-giving culture by doing the tasks you have earned the right to avoid. How many parents have stood there with their mouths open when their children cleaned their room without being asked? It is the same feeling when your boss works hard right alongside you.
Working hard is the beginning of the four S’s of leadership, because once you embrace this call you can move forward to the always-popular call to sacrifice.
2. A Call to Sacrifice: Life-Giving Leaders Sacrifice for the Cause
Simon Sinek, author of Leaders Eat Last and whose “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” TED Talk is still top five of all time, said, “If you choose to be a leader, it means when everything goes right, you have to give away all the credit. When everything goes wrong, you have to take all the responsibility. That sucks. That’s sacrifice.”
Sacrifice should be normal in Christian leadership. Giving yourself to others is part of the plan. Jesus made that abundantly clear. If you want to be first, you choose to be last and you choose to sacrifice for those around you (see Matthew 19:29–30). Leadership requires us to sacrifice things of value.
If you aren’t making consistent time for your key leaders, their value to you will be questioned. Devoting time to people is a primary way life flows from you to others.
Learning to discern when to give time—what’s most important at the moment, who needs your time the most, what can be left until later—is a major tool in the life-giving leader’s tool kit. It can change everything.
Life-giving leaders understand the power of sacrificing today’s gratification for a better tomorrow. As Jesus taught, “Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self” (Mark 8:35, MSG). The best way to become your truest self and lead from your truest self is through self-sacrifice.
Upstairs thinking forces us to realize that we are stewards of God’s resources, not investors looking out for our greatest financial return. When you realize you’re managing someone else’s (God’s) money, it makes it easier to give your money away. I’m not talking just about tithing; I’m talking about handing over your money when others need it more. God calls us to be generous people.
Choosing to sacrifice money for others is kryptonite for greed. It crushes the power greed can have over the way we live. We like to think that when money is tight we are justified in keeping all of it for ourselves. But giving isn’t an option.
Keep short accounts. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). In other words, life-giving leaders understand that dealing with anger, frustration, or whatever needs to be swift so it doesn’t get a foothold. Leaders have to address issues when they first occur. That way a leader can prevent the problem from growing into something bigger and more damaging. It’s much harder to deal with a problem that has gotten out of hand.
As leadership expert John Maxwell wrote, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” It’s absolutely true when it comes to conflict. When you deal with conflict but have no relational capital, it’s virtually impossible for things to go well.
3. A Call to Surrender: Life-Giving Leaders Surrender to God’s Will
One of the greatest examples of surrender is Martin Luther King Jr.
Not only was he committed to racial equality, but he had surrendered to getting there without relying on violence. Throughout thirteen years of leadership aimed at racial equality, he stayed committed to nonviolent protest even when he and fellow demonstrators and leaders were assaulted. You can’t win the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of thirty-five unless you’ve surrendered to something bigger than your own life.
Life-giving leaders surrender to God’s will. We could never figure all this out on our own. We have to be following a guide, which for us is the will of God.
Jesus often talked about the cost of following Him: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34, NIV). Not only are we, as followers of Jesus, invited to visit Upstairs from time to time, but we are also invited to live Upstairs. We are heirs, sons and daughters. Heirs don’t live downstairs; they live upstairs. They dine upstairs. They learn the ways of the lord of the house. They make upstairs decisions that lead to work getting done downstairs. Life-giving leaders have adopted an Upstairs point of view, and it helps frame their decision-making with proper perspective.
It flows from Upstairs to Downstairs. When we receive from God, we can give to others. When we sit with God Upstairs, we understand how to spread life Downstairs. When you get a taste of Upstairs, you crave it forever. Upstairs is different. It’s calm. It’s peaceful. It’s devoid of chaos. Clarity and excitement rule. Passion and love are ever-present. God is there. Listen, leaders. Surrender is easy when you have experienced God like that.
Many experts talk about a personal or family budget in these terms: either you can decide where the money goes or it will decide for you. The same thing applies when prioritizing the Lord’s movement and plan for your life. Either you prioritize His place in your life and leadership or God will have to move in different ways.
Legendary leadership guru and thought leader Jim Collins has written at length about having a personal board of directors. In 1996 he wrote, “I mean a personal board of directors composed of…people you deeply respect and would not want to let down.”
We must surrender and have a correct posture in regard to God’s position and plan. We often work for God but fail to spend time with Him. We may be building things for Him without knowing if that’s even what He desires. Surrendering to God requires time with Him. The best posture for life-giving leaders is to be on our knees and sometimes our faces in worship and prayer. Surrender is birthed in quiet places with the Lord.
When we place ourselves in a posture of worship, God places Himself in the right place in our lives. God has got this. For you and for me. For your team. For your family. We just have to surrender to our relationship with Him.
4. A Call to Serve: Life-Giving Leaders Serve Others
Serving is a choice that anyone can make. But for believers in Jesus, serving is not optional.
There is something compelling and authentic about leaders who put their personal interests and goals aside to focus on helping someone else. Life-giving leaders understand that no matter how far up the ladder they go in an organization, they will always strive to serve the people on their team.
It’s “Upside-Down Greatness” as described in Matthew 20:26-28, “Whoever wants to be great must become a servant….That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.”
Choosing to serve others shows a commitment to the kingdom story. Life-giving leaders choose this commitment. They live to serve.
As Paul put it in Romans 12:10, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” When the leader of the organization chooses to put the team first, everyone wins.
Serving others is more about posture than position. It’s about choosing to value others by doing things to serve them.
As children we are taught to follow the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.” It’s a good rule to live by. Even if we were to take this rule to heart and stop there, we’d make great progress as a culture.
The Platinum Rule refers to doing unto others as they would want done unto them. In other words, learn your people and serve them in the ways that would mean the most to them.
It is difficult to stay frustrated with people when you choose to serve them. Something happens to your heart, even when you start out frustrated, if you choose to put someone else first. Try it and see what happens.
Jesus modeled all four of these calls: sweating, sacrificing, surrendering, and serving. Jesus worked and sweated to teach and care for others. Jesus sacrificed everything, including His life, for us. Jesus lived fully surrendered. Jesus chose to always serve first.
Life-giving leaders allow these four characteristics to be the litmus test for how they’re doing. This is life-altering leadership.
Part 4: How Life-Giving Leaders Change Organizations
Many of you are not in Christian organizations such as a church, mission, or Christian school. But we should all strive to create or be part of life-giving cultures and serve those who are entrusted to us. Organizations are always better when they have life-giving leaders.
Life-Giving Leaders Create Vibrant Organizations
Life-giving leadership can bring color to monochrome organizations. Leaders who choose to lead well let life flow. They are “leaders worth following.”
People will not stay in places where growth and abundance are absent.
Leadership isn’t just what you do but what you allow. Where are you allowing leaders to operate counter to the culture you are trying to create?
Life-Giving Leaders Build Teams That Flourish
Nothing else in the world can replicate the experience of being on a great team. A life-giving team might very well be one of the greatest gifts we can give to leaders.
High-capacity, life-giving teams change the game. When teams win championships, people are on top of the world. When they don’t, it’s tough to stay motivated. Teams can be amazing or they can be brutal. They can be life-giving or they can suck the life out of you.
This is mission-critical for teams that don’t want to stop with success; they want to flourish. Please know that a good product with a bad process is a counterfeit win. To you it feels as if you’re losing. That’s why it’s counterfeit. It feels like one thing to those outside your organization or team and something totally different to those involved behind the scenes, to those who are in the process. When there is a deep discrepancy between experience for some and reality for others, the counterfeit win is fully alive.
One of the most frequent questions asked by leaders in business, ministry, and the nonprofit world alike is this: How do you find and keep good talent? The answer is simple: Make your workplace life-giving. Make it irresistible. You have the title. You get to create the culture.
Here are a couple of ways to avoid counterfeit wins and create life-giving teams:
- Trust versus Suspicion: One of the best leadership thinkers on the planet, Andy Stanley says, “When there’s a gap in information, you have a choice. You can choose to trust the person or you can choose to be suspicious. Great teams choose to trust each other when there is a gap in information.” When something comes up that could cause conflict, I tell my team, “Fill the gap with facts, and then we don’t have to make a choice.” However, if we, as a team, have to make a choice, we choose to believe the best. We choose trust. (See my post on The Speed of Trust.)
- Advocate for One Another: Once you’ve established a foundation of trust, then you can choose to fight for one another. Life-giving leaders understand that they must champion the people God has entrusted to them. When you choose to be an advocate for one of your teammates, he or she will never forget it and it will change your relationship. It draws you together. And guess what? That person will now be your advocate. Life-giving leaders become the best students of their team members’ unique contributions. Even NBA legend LeBron James needs good players around him to win games. Superstars don’t exist without help. Team building and orchestrating a group of unique leaders is leadership legacy at its finest.
Life-Giving Leaders Leave a Legacy
Have you ever been around leaders who had such an impact on your life that you would do anything for them? When you are led by someone who brings you life and encourages you to lean into your uniqueness, it changes you. It will affect you for the rest of your life.
You never know who will make a lasting impact on your life. It might be a leader you are close to for years or it could be someone you’re around for only a few days or a moment.
Isn’t that how you want to end this race? Grateful and surrounded by leaders whom God has allowed you to influence in a life-giving way.
Leaders, the pursuit of life-giving leadership begins and ends with Jesus. Jesus is the clearest and most complete picture of how leaders should lead. Leadership should center on bringing life to others. Jesus brings life to people. It only makes sense that they go hand in hand.
Go and lead as if people’s lives depend on your leadership, because they do. Pour life into others to build a life-giving leadership legacy. There is no greater pursuit for our leadership. Seek first the kingdom and lead from that posture. God will serve alongside you, and it will be the most fulfilling adventure of your life. People are worth our best. Go and be a life-giving leader!