Heart Leadership
Solomon, in Proverbs 4.23, makes a comment rarely applied to leadership:
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
We don’t tend to think of leadership as a heart issue. For most, leadership seems more head, more analysis, more systems thinking, more programmatic solution-finding. Leadership is certainly all of that and more. But that isn’t where deep leadership issues start. They start inside us at subterranean levels and slowly surface.
Regardless of how much sense something makes, I always ask myself, “How do I feel? What’s going on in my heart? How would it make this person feel? What are some of the things I sense? What is my intuition telling me?”
A guiding thought for me along these lines is this: God thinks the world of this person. In light of that, how do I need to treat them? How do I need to lead them?
Sometimes, all the books and conferences in the world won’t get you here. Great leaders lead from the heart.
June 2nd, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Interesting post in light of my current happenings. I will be leading a team to Namibia in just 14 days, and looking at the leadership qualities that it takes, I find myself overly prepared for the logistics, “head knowledge” and analytical processing. Yet, at the very same time, I find myself completely overwhelmed and lacking in the area of spiritual leadership, which comes from the need for dicernment, wisdom and understanding, all of which require a great deal of “heart”. Guarding my heart is absolutely vital to perserving the spiritual leadership qualities necessary to guide anyone.
Definitely causes me to examine my preparedness more closely. Thanks!
June 3rd, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Great post. I always feel like I am so inadequate for the job that God has placed before me. Then he reassures me by showing me how much I love my city and the teens that I meet and minister to. You can analyze something to death but when you love those that you lead, they will follow you anywhere.
June 3rd, 2005 at 1:38 pm
Never looked at it that way. It is somethimes hard to block out the events of the day & have love shine thru. Our teenagers don’t know the stress that goes on getting everything ready for service, then blocking that out to focus on what God wants to do in their lives.