Why Patience Is A Particularly Difficult Virtue For Leaders To Develop!

Running shoes are more comfortable than work boots. Getting our way, winning an argument, and keeping the machinery running at all cost is much easier than, gracefully waiting, speaking with seasoned words, and allowing a certain amount of failure to come about because of the flaws of ourselves and others. It is much easier to end a problem and have closure, with the desired results or not, than it is to suffer long and endure. Patience is only learned through the trials of “thorns and thistles”. Many leaders would rather run away than to weather the storm. One can conclude that unless a spiritual leader is willing to afford themselves discomfort, denial of self, and getting our agenda passed, they will never learn the virtuous quality of character known as patience.

The Positive And Negative Aspects Of Anger In Leadership!

On the surface, it seems that anger and leadership only mix in a dictatorial environment. While it is true that dictators, whether ministers or CEO’s, often have anger as a fault, being righteously indignant is a quality that all spiritual leaders need. A classic example of this would be when Jesus drove the money changers from the Temple with a whip. No level-headed person would overlook the fact that Jesus was angry. His anger was not sinful. It did not overrule His emotions where He lost control of His temperament. His righteous passion for the dignity of the Temple, including all of its functions, caused Him to conclusively end the deceitfulness of those who were in violation of God’s Law. Thus, He was angry at their sin. This anger led Him to serve His Heavenly Father in a constructive and holy way! Every leader of God’s people must have anger as a spoke in the wheel of their character.

Just as anger can help a man deal with a disturbing situation and keep him in the battle until the smoke clears, it can also hurt him; costing him everything. There are high stakes in this arena of anger. A hot-headed man, who is always boiling over, will not mature in character. Rather, he will regress and eventually lose the respect of those with whom God has placed into his care. Anger can behave much like a termite does in wood. On the inside, inch by inch, the core is being eaten up. After a while the signs show up on the outside. Sooner or later, the structural integrity of the building will collapse. So it is with the spiritual leader who fails to utilize anger in the right way.

Is There A Place For Humor In Leadership?

Humor is essential to sound leadership. The ability to take the edge off of a sharp comment or the acknowledgment of a failure through a tactful jest can be both helpful and befitting to those around. Serious people can learn to be funny by prayerfully maintain dignity of character, while aptly poking fun at themselves. The ability to balance jest and retain character is a fine line. Many a preacher has lost his influence by too candid of humor. Likewise, many able men of God have minimized their usefulness unknowingly by being too serious. The man of God must keep humor in his tool chest; pulling it out only when needed and promptly replacing it so as to retain sound influence.

Leaders in any forum can be helped greatly by managing a good sense of humor. Dirty jokes, foul language, and racial overtones must be avoided at all costs. Whether in the business world, barber shop, supermarket, or the local city park, all leaders must be careful to use proper etiquette. Leaders need the respect of those they are leading. If they sever that cord, then they risk loosing the momentum they had in their project, hinder the potential of their subordinates, and lose credibility. Bottom line... leaders should tastefully use humor to their advantage.

Can A Leader's Vision Be A Hindrance?

A person who is a visionary can be so caught up in the “end” that he forgets the “now”. By this I mean that a leader who has vision must be able to see “it” in the end, but be able to clear a road for people to make it there. It is true that your best leaders were those who saw things others did not. Many times, however, a leader has made the mistake of forging ahead and leaving his subordinates behind. When this happens he has ceased to be a leader, and, in effect, become a loner. A leader can turn vision into a reality, but he has to adjust for the wind. Thus, vision can create a vacuum if one is not careful to balance vision with realism.

Which Model Of Leadership: Peter Or Paul?

Leadership comes with a high price tag. In either case to pick from, both Peter and Paul’s model came through tremendous suffering, and hardship. If I had to pick one, I would pick Paul’s model. He seemed to have the intellectual capacity from his natural abilities that, when God saved him, were grafted into service for Christ. He tended to be an example of one who led without scandal. He led in such a way that he could say, in the words of the Holy Ghost, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Paul, indeed, was such a close disciple of Christ that you could say that as you were following Paul you were, in effect, following Jesus for they were “nose to tail” in the road to Glory. Paul led from principle and practiced what he preached, while Peter tended to be more failure driven. In other words, he had so many blunders from his “foot in mouth syndrome” that he led from learning from them. That is not bad, but Paul did not have many instances of that nature. Paul was leading remembering what he was before he was saved and what he had done previously to the church of God. I would like to follow Paul’s model, but I find myself being in a part of Peter’s model of leadership.

Common Deficiencies And Failures Among Church Leaders!

The one problem I face, my own troubled fountain, is also the scourge of most pulpits in this country. I am speaking, of course, of the leader driving the car and not God. We often impose “our” deadlines, “our” agendas, “our” plans, “our” projects, “our” expectations, “our” standards, “our” convictions, “our” dreams, and forget what God wants. We get blinded by our own ambition. Instead of governing as if God was in control and we were simply following His lead… instead of leading our company of soldiers in this battle while following our own Commander-In-Chief, we design our own battle field and its choreography. More often than not, church leaders are guilty of creating our own battles and then providing our own solutions. Basically we take the role of deity and make our church family lowly subjects who slave and provide the money to build our kingdoms. We should instead be the “under-rower”, the servant of all and promote the church family to the status that God sees them as: His Sheep! We would do well to spend time in prayer to find out which way God is going and follow Him!