In every organisation, ministry and business, leadership plays an essential role in how much impact it can make on the world. Therefore, it’s necessary that every person serving or working in an organisation, be it a ministry or business, understand leadership principles in order to maximise one’s impact on the world.
When things don’t go well, external factors are hardly the cause of the misfortune. It comes from within. In one of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills’ books on leadership, he said that “everything rises and falls on leadership.”
Studying the Bible very well and the life of Jesus on earth, I’ve come across four leadership principles in Christ I’d like to share with you in this article. Here are they.
1. Lead with a vision
I remember telling my team members some time ago that “leadership without vision shall end in destruction.” In our ministry, we apprise every new person recruited to our team that we don’t need people to add up to the numbers serving. Instead, we need people to fulfil God’s vision for our existence. And I see this as the exact thing Jesus exemplified to the twelve apostles.
Jesus prayed overnight before choosing each one of them (Luke 6:12-13). Jesus knew why He came to the earth. So He was careful not to select people to serve alongside Him. So He needed people to help Him both to fulfil God’s vision of dying to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29) and spread the gospel everywhere on the face of the earth. Guess what? If Jesus didn’t know His purpose, He and his team would have been a mess.
Purpose gives you spiritual insight and direction to where God is taking you in future so you can make adequate preparations today. It affects your prayer life, thought patterns, plans, choices, and how you handle things entrusted to you.
God doesn’t assign helper(s) to people going anywhere in life; even that includes marriage. Before He said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him” – Genesis 2:18 (NKJV), Adam already knew his purpose (dressing and tending the garden of Eden – Genesis 2:15). He was in the process of fulfilling it as he kept naming animals and other things. Discover your divine purpose, and you’ll know why God brought you on this earth.
2. Become a servant
There is no doubt that greatness is linked directly to leadership. However, Jesus never taught us to be so consumed with becoming great by filling in leadership positions that we forget it’s all about service. Look at what He told his disciples when an argument broke out on who would be the greatest amongst them.
And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.
Mark 9:35 (NKJV)
Jesus is saying that leadership is measured by service, not by titles. That is to say, that leadership is not about how many people serve or follow you but how you render your service to them.
If you want to be a great leader in Christ, choose to serve others with the divine gift God has deposited in you. It might be related to ministry, business or otherwise. Just make sure you are on the path of doing what God has called you to with the anointing upon your life.
3. Focus on obeying God
If the Holy Spirit is the main inspiration behind your divine vision, you must learn to discern His voice when He speaks so that you will always obey Him. That further means that as a leader, you should consider making time to be with God alone. When you do this, you will receive new instructions from the Lord, know the next step to take as you lead and fulfil your divine mandate.
Leadership is measured by service, not by titles.
One time, Jesus woke up at dawn to be with the Father before all the disciples woke up. When they did, they were looking for Jesus everywhere. But when Jesus came around, He did not listen to their complaints. Look at what He said to them in Mark 1:38 (NKJV)
But He said to them, “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth.
Mark 1:38 (NKJV)
Here is what I learned after reading this scripture. Followers like complaining when they encounter issues. But as a leader, you do something about it. Do not react to problems; respond to them with solutions.
4. Raise your team by training
When Jesus chose the twelve apostles, each one had his occupation. It wasn’t his duty to change their jobs. However, He knew He was responsible for training them to preach the gospel, especially after He had left the earth. Because of how busy and purposeful Jesus was, He spent much more time with these twelve disciples than with the multitudes, exposing them to a greater depth of what He knew and explaining things in detail that He said in parables to crowds.
It could be that the people God has ordained to be in your team may have different occupations or have absolutely different educational backgrounds. However, I believe in training.
If Jesus trained a tax collector like Matthew (who was regarded by many as corrupt) to preach the gospel to the extent that we use his account of his Master (Jesus) to date, there’s no impossibility when it comes to training people to help you to fulfil your divine mandate. Maybe, the people who signed up to work with you have bad attitudes or are unserious. Look beyond those things because they are subject to change when training is done mainly with the Word of God and other essential resources.
Put jokes aside and work hard, not just because of what you want to earn for a living, but for transgenerational impact. Build buildings, systems and structures in your ministry or organisation that ends up producing more leaders, and you’ll never run short of people to help you to make an impact on the world. I hope these four leadership principles in Christ were a blessing to you.
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