Leadership Thoughts
I get weary of the plethora of writing on leadership that exists. Everyone and their dog has their own “17 Leadership Principles You Simply Can’t Ignore,” take on the essentials of leadership. Rather than feeling empowered, I usually come away from these lists feeling discouraged and hopeless.
So when I came across this blog entry on leadership, I thought, “Now that’s something I can get my brain around.” Matt Brown recently wrote on leadership in his blog, “thinke”. He titled his entry, “The Leader Worth Following.” I think it fits well with The Good Enough Pastor concept.
Here is his leadership list in concise form:
“From my reservoir of experience, I believe great leadership boils down to a few key traits that I will spend my life striving to be for others:
1. Be nice
2. Constantly improve
3. Over communicate
4. Under-promise and over-deliver”
For a complete read of his thoughts on leadership, check out his blog at http://www.thinke.org/blog/2011/12/6/the-leader-worth-following.html.
thegoodenoughpastor 
I like that. It’s not about being a person who bosses others around. It’s about being someone worth following. That means respecting people and going somewhere worth going. That makes you a leader (no matter who you are) and when people start to follow you, it creates a movement.
I agree. It makes leadership more organic, and that seems to be the real heart of it. I don’t observe leaders (whether in the Bible, or in my own life experience) TRYING to be leaders by studying the latest leadership technology. They just ARE. They are themselves and that seems to attract others to follow them. And, WALLAH!!!, they are leaders. I like what I heard often in my grad program: A self is always more attractive than a non-self.
Love the article, Jeff, but my favorite line is in your comment above: “A self is always more attractive than a non-self.” Great perspective!
Thanks Russ. I wish I could take credit for it, but like most wisdom, it’s been around a while. Be blessed!
There is one other key point I would add to those four, and that would be “Have a Vision.”
There is some overlap there with the “over-communicate” idea, but it also includes things like anticipating many different possibilities and reactions (many times, this requires a lot of empathy), and also planning for the consequences of those possibilities.
I’m not sure how applicable it is for pastoring, but the practical part of “leader” is “lead,” and if you’re not going anywhere, how can you do that?