Heart and Soul of Leadership: Part Four

Leadership is a labor of love. Actually, due to the foundational aspect of this statement this could have been my first post about leadership. However, I chose to begin by pointing out that leaders know they need God's help. We cannot lead in love without God's help. I can say that with confidence because of the enormous challenge that love presents. We underestimate how taxing it is to lead in love because our definition of love often does not resemble God's definition. Remember God loves the world. The love of God was evident on the cross when Jesus was pleading for forgiveness while being tortured and ridiculed. That's leadership. That's love. Admittedly, it's a different picture of courageous leadership than what is portrayed on the bookshelves in the business section at Barnes and Noble. But, for a follower of Christ He is the measure. Without love leadership is a masquerade. We may be very good at disguising our selfish pursuit of power and influence as something more noble. But it will never be true Christian leadership.