Stephen Covey – Big Rocks: Put First Things First
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Leadership Development in one sentence
Jesus called his first apostles by saying: “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” (Mark 1:14 NASB). Encapsulated within this sentence is a perfect leadership development model.
Foremost in His development model for Simon Peter and Andrew was the call to both physically follow Him and to emulate His teachings and example (Jews like Peter and Andrew understood that to follow a Rabbi was to emulate and learn from him). Like Jesus, leaders are called to model the behavior of a leader disciple for those developing in their faith to emulate.
Second in Jesus’ development model is the assignment of responsibility and goals. Jesus took upon Himself the responsibility of developing His apostles into the Spiritual leaders when he said, “I will.” His promise was to make them become leaders. Some people are born with some physical and mental traits of a leader, but no one is born with a complete set of leadership traits (who a leader is) and skills (what a leader does). Every single person must “become” or develop into a leader.
Finally, Jesus called his apostles to be “fishers of men (people).” The fishermen who heard this word picture understood Jesus was calling them to become a leader who could “catch” or influence people to the gospel in His name. This is the essence of leadership, influencing people toward a higher goal.
Spiritual leaders in the church are responsible for finding and calling future generations of leaders. A responsibility that extends to purposefully maturing young leaders through mentorship and the modeling of strong traits and skills for them to emulate. Echoing the words of Jesus, leaders in the church must say to potential future leaders, “Follow my example and I will make you a leader of people.”
Making Decisions is the Essence of Leadership
““When you come right down to it, leadership is, of course, being exerted all the time in the capacity of boosting morale, confidence and all that, but leadership is most noticeable when tough decisions finally have to be made. This is the time when you get conflicting advice and urgent advice of every kind. Now this is the kind of leadership that’s often concealed from the public.… But making decisions is of the essence in leadership—that is, handling large problems whether or not you are at war or at peace. When you make these decisions it is not done with any reaching for the dramatic. It is almost everyday and commonplace. You reach a conclusion based upon the facts as you see them, the evaluations of the several factors as you see them, the relationship of one fact to another, and, above all, your convictions as to the capacity of different individuals to fit into these different places. You come to a decision after you’ve taken all these things into consideration. Then you decide and say, ‘That’s what we’ll do.’” General Dwight D. Eisenhower
— American Generalship: Character Is Everything: The Art of Command by Edgar Puryear
Self-Leadership
Without mature self-leadership competencies, leaders face an increasingly unsustainable environment. The stress of growing job complexity, difficult decisions, limited time, information overload, the high stakes of negative consequences (this list goes on for a while) combined with the attention required to maintain family, friends, church, hobbies (this list also goes on) can be impossible to manage. UNLESS you understand that self-leadership comes before all other levels of leadership (direct-, organizational-, strategic-) and have ingrained the self-leadership disciplines you need to sustain the leadership environment.
Self-Leadership is a continual cognitive discipline that strengthens the spiritual core and builds mental, physical, and emotional wellness to maximize performance and happiness* to reach personal and organizational objectives.
*The Stoics defined happiness (eudaimonia) more deeply as “flourishing” and “living in agreement with your purpose (nature).” Contrast with “hapless”
On Leadership Vision
“Questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing.”
— Walter Brueggemann, American Protestant Old Testament scholar and theologian