Hello again everyone! Thanks for reading my blog. I often wonder how many of you read these entries, and come away wondering if I’m ever going to actually talk about leadership. Well, today is your day (sort of)!
You see, I have been talking about leadership since day one. Each entry contains fundamental leadership building blocks that will help you be successful. They may not teach you specific skills, but these characteristics that God is trying to build, strengthen, and maintain in your life will play much more significant roles in your success than any tips I can give you about interviewing, goal-setting, or P&L analysis.
For example, I tend to focus a lot of attention on perseverance. This is a key leadership trait that is severely lacking in today’s “instant-gratification” society that believes if at first you don’t succeed, just give up! The devil knows the difference between success and failure or victory and defeat is often just staying the course through adversity. Therefore, it’s no accident that overcoming is a key theme in the book of Revelation, because Jesus knew we would struggle with that characteristic in these end times.
The trials we will face and the obstacles we will have to overcome are going to get worse, not better, as we draw nearer to the tribulation. So the devil wants to perpetuate a victims’ mentality in the lost and a “life of convenience” mentality in the saved. Either way, it’s a recipe for disaster. Perseverance is a much better strategy, and today’s leaders must model that for their subordinates as well as set it as an expectation for them to follow.
Other subjects I’ve covered are joy, consistency, quality work versus quantity of work, and mentoring. While all of these are excellent subjects to read about, only mentoring is an obvious leadership trait. However, by maintaining those other qualities in your life and your endeavors, you are strengthening your overall leadership skills by sowing the right seeds.
Let me explain. By sowing seeds of joy in your life, you will reap a harvest of joy. It has to be this way, because God said you reap what you sow (Gal 5:7). He also proves it in the world around us: if you plant green beans, you get green beans, not corn! For most men, our greatest level of contentment or discontentment is derived from our work (see Gen. 2:15 if you want to know why). Therefore, if you’re in leadership, and you sow seeds of joy into your life, it would take a giant leap of doubt to expect anything less than successful leadership, because unsuccessful leadership would not lead to joy or contentment, but just the opposite!
So as you read these blogs, try to envision how you might work these character qualities into your life—both on the job and off—and you will see how they build upon each other to enhance your Christian character and improve your ability to lead.
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