The Demands of Leadership

When they arrived, he [Paul] said to them: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia.  I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents." (Acts 20:18-19, emphasis added)


Leading from the Penthouse vs. Leading from the Outhouse 

Leading from the Penthouse
As a business school graduate, I once contemplated the "Management" major.  However, when asked what I planned to do with that degree I naively responded, "I'm not sure, become a manager in some company."  (so I chose Marketing instead).  It would seem that I was not alone in my thinking.  Many who desire to lead seem to misunderstand the "demands" of leadership.  Popular thought seems to say that: 

• leadership demands respect 
• leadership demands compensation 
• leadership demands people's best
• leadership demands the penthouse office suite  

However, this understanding of "demands" could easily be replaced with the word "entitlement."  Bottom line, it's all about them, it's all about status, it's all about how other people see them.  Just like my old management degree thinking, it didn't matter what I did so long as I wasn't at the bottom of the organizational chart.  

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Leading from the Outhouse
By contrast, biblical leadership feels more like getting dumped on all day long.  Working with and for others on a team often means dealing with the muck in their lives. Following the Holy Spirit's guiding may mean flushing your desire/hope for a project.  

As Paul bids the Elders of Ephesus farewell the demands of his leadership appear very different than above:

• leadership demands forgoing pride (great humility) 
• leadership demands suffering (with tears)
• leadership demands enduring people's worst (severe tests & plots)
• leadership demands working in the outhouse

In Good to Great, Phil Collins outlines that good leaders act like windows when things go well (becoming transparent so success is passed on to their team), and like mirrors when things go poorly (looking at themselves to blame and protecting their team).  Bottom line, it's all about others - God, Jesus, & the Holy Spirit and team members, ministry followers, and skeptics.  

Much is demanded of leaders, but leaders who demand aren't much.

What about us?
When we walk into leadership are we demanding something...from God, from others?  
- Fruit from our ministry?  - Greater numbers?  - Bigger influence/impact?
Are we demanding a hidden agenda?  
- a Theology?  - a Vision?  - to Relive the past?

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