Recently I participated in a conversation about leadership, from secular and religious perspectives (With a certain Zebra). Amid this exchange of ideas, it occurred to me that there are three main differences between these two institutions, of course there are many others, but in application there are three primary areas that I have identified.
If you are not in direct or official leadership I still encourage you to read, If you are a leader but not a Christian, I urge you to read also, as a different perspective can enrich your own outlook on the topic. If you are a Christian it will hopefully help you understand your leaders, perhaps preparing you for leadership in your own sphere of influence and finally, for those who are already effective leaders, your comments are more than welcome. So without further ado here is part one of this Three part series.
1:We are all Volunteers
Aside from the pastor anyway, the people who comprise a church are volunteers, this means that the motivation of an individual to serve or be a part of the whole is not founded in monetary gain. that removes a tool that secular leaders are often accustomed to using, There is no universal standard of currency in a volunteer organization.
What this means for leadership is if you plan to be effective, and bring about the goals of the organization, you need to learn better leadership skills. I know “better” is a subjective term but what I mean is that you can not just give direction, or “orders” for want of a better term. The solution lies in being a servant leader, you must not only lead by example, by their side but you motivate by loving. If a person has a good relationship with another and has respect for that person they are far more motivated to take part in the vision that person is communicating.
The final point I will make here is that you can NEVER (yes, I am aware this is an absolute statement) motivate or lead anyone by pretending to love them. You should never plan to show affection for someone so they will follow your lead, this is just plain dishonest, so get that idea out of your head right now.
The key to this whole point, Christian or not, is;
Lead because you love. Do not Love because you Lead.
