Principles of Effective Leadership - Lesson 5

Dr. John Johnson
Principles of Effective Leadership
PC506-05
The Acquisition of Leadership
Lesson Transcript

Dr. John Johnson [00:00:00] Here we go. You ready? This is the always the very challenging moment in teaching. Right after lunch. So be engaged. We're going to talk about a third piece here. Let's just do a little review here. We've talked about definitions, leadership. Basically, three legs of a stool. What are the three components leaders? Number one, what? They have followers. Secondly, they have influence. And thirdly, direction in moving people towards that direction. Right. Then we move from there to talk about the need for leadership. Why are leaders necessary? Was a convincing. Leaders do what? Yeah. So they provide the momentum.

Speaker 2 [00:00:52] They change.

Dr. John Johnson [00:00:53] They produce change. They're the catalysts, right? Yeah, they do. What else? You keep things going. Keep things going. They not only initiate, but they keep it. But we said there was one more piece.

Speaker 2 [00:01:07] They set the tone.

Dr. John Johnson [00:01:08] They set the tone. The values. Right. As the leader often goes, so goes the organization. You see this in lots of corporations. Nordstrom And I think it goes all the way back to the very core values of the owner. And that is the core value is the customer's always right. That was the owner, probably John Nordstrom's core value. And to this day, that's their philosophy. It's part of the reason they're successful. My mom used to work in their customer service, and it was hard at times because Why? What's the core value, though? Customers always right. And some would really take advantage of that. But compensating that was just a sense that I know that they will always take care of me.

Speaker 3 [00:02:01] In return to something.

Dr. John Johnson [00:02:03] Yeah.

Speaker 3 [00:02:04] 25 years later.

Dr. John Johnson [00:02:06] Yeah. Is that right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 [00:02:10] Or a sleeping bag.

Dr. John Johnson [00:02:11] If you're if you're unhappy with it or.

Speaker 4 [00:02:14] Anything. Not producing at the.

Dr. John Johnson [00:02:16] Optimum.

Speaker 2 [00:02:16] When you bought it.

Dr. John Johnson [00:02:18] Yeah. Which probably goes back to its leadership, doesn't it? Sure. Again, it wasn't just an idea thought of by a corporate culture, but by a leader who started it, who had that fundamental idea. So it's always one of the things that's really interesting is to look at those who start things and what was at the core of their being. You'll see that in this first chapter of leadership moment in that really fabulous Who gets the corporation to attack this river blindness? It was a huge you'll see that in the chapter if you haven't read it already. It's a huge corporate risk because they're going to try to deal with this river blindness in Africa. I think it is. But the huge, huge risk to the corporation is this There's not going to be a return this time. There won't be any profit from it. These people can't pay for this. There's huge logistical challenges to get this medication service to the people. But what fabulous does is he goes back to, even though he knew that he took the chance, the risk, he knew the board might really say, what in the world do you think you're doing? But he did it because he went back to the core value, which I think again goes back to the founder of Merck. So leaders, it's always where it starts. And so that's why, again, it's really important for us to aspire to leadership that we watch over our hearts. Because whatever we lead will be a reflection to a certain extent of our heart. It's a lot of responsibility. Let's shift in this third piece. Let's talk about acquisition of leadership. And the question here we want to address is this question of our leaders born. And there's a lot of debate on this. If I'm not a born leader, does that mean I have no hope of being a leader? That might be another way of putting it. Now to the question, are leaders born? You could say right from the start. Well, empirical evidence does suggest leaders are born in a very simplistic sense. Of course leaders are born. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist. But the question really is that's getting at is, is leadership something innate? Is there something like this in your bones? You are or you're not? Or is it that leadership is something that can be developed, acquired over time? Like, I don't know, maybe somebody who hates wine but acquires a taste over time that leadership is acquired over time. What I'm going to do is break this up into three kind of different voices who come at it from three different angles. So the first set of voices would say that leadership is innate, either born with it or you're not. It's just it's just who you are. It's part of your DNA. It goes back to this great man theory of leadership we talked about. That was popular for centuries, right up to two World War two. And there are various people who. Who've written on leadership. Let's say Calvin Miller. I give an example here. He concludes that leadership, as he puts it, leadership owns leaders. It's not gained by studying books. It's innate. It's encoded in the DNA and may be called forth by crisis, but it's never produced by crisis. So the crisis reveals what's already inside. It doesn't suddenly mean that something comes upon a person. I give the quote here of Gergen, who says that many of the best of the past Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Mandela, Golda meir, Martin Luther King Jr had, as he puts it, leadership in their bones. I mean, it was there. And so they responded to this in a calling. Leadership is something that's inheritable. Now, there are some on the other side that would say, well, no, hold on, wait a minute. It may be there in the bones, but the reality is leadership is something we can all acquire, we can all have. It is an ability that's available to anyone who wants to invest their time in leadership development. In other words, it's not an exclusive club for those who are born with it. You're either in or you're out. So a guy like Quess, Quess and Posner, they've written a lot on leadership. They've written one of the main leadership textbook. I used to use it but decided not to. In recent times, this is what they say. The most pernicious myth is that leadership is reserved for only a few of us. Think about this for a moment. Of course, people who write on leadership would say this. How else would they sell books? I'm being a little bit cynical here, but of course they want to say that everyone can be a leader, leadership can be acquired. And by the way, we have the training manual, if you will, to get you there. But he does ask a fair question here in the middle of the page. He says these questions are always raised about leadership and leaders, never about management and managers. It's a curious phenomenon. Why is management viewed as a set of skills and abilities to go to management, school or management seminars? While leadership is typically seen as a set of innate personality characteristics. That's a fair question. Warren Bennett, who I come back to here, says everyone has leadership potential, just as everyone has some ability at running or acting or painting. Even me, maybe music. Really, the best thing I can play is a radio. But maybe if I worked hard at something, I could learn how to play harmonica. I was thinking maybe the drums are just banging away, right? To the notion people are born and not made leaders. Bennis writes, Don't believe it. Nurture is much more important than nature. See what he's saying. So you just got to nurture it, build it. Created Moses, develop Joshua David developed and deployed his mighty men. Elijah mentored and developed Elisha. So how do you acquire it then? You acquire by studying. By drawing upon experiences. By training. By taking DMEs five or six. I'm going to make you and shape you into leaders by the time this is all up. So it doesn't happen quickly. Of course, like any skills, it's going to take time. It's not fast or painless. Now, a third positions would come at it from a little different angle. And I got this from reading some years ago, Leonard Sweet, who wrote a book on leadership, and he says leadership is more really about the summoning. Leaders, he says, are neither born nor made. They're summoned. They are called into existence by the circumstances. So here's a Winston Churchill, and there's the Battle of Britain. He summoned this guy that basically has not been viewed with a lot of respect, has been marginalized, perceived as kind of a failure kind of guy. He's a fascinating study in leadership, but he's the one lone voice through it all, like everybody wants appeasement with Hitler. He was the one guy that just kept saying, you can't can't get in bed with that guy. He's he's a wolf. He's going to destroy. And everybody saying, you're an alarmist. You're not being real. Well, Churchill is the one voice that finally went, so to speak. All hell breaks loose. Everybody goes to Churchill and they summon him. So the moment summoned him. Giuliani, who some would say was sort of a has been mayor until 911. Then he was summoned to leadership. So sweet. We've got two examples like that. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Someone once asked him, How did you become a war hero? His simple answer was, they sent my boat. It was the captain of T one or nine, which was this almost mythical, heroic story we read as kids. That was part of him becoming president. It's interesting how we use the hero language. Rather quite loosely. I was watching the news last night and they were giving tribute to the 11 men who lost their lives on this oil platform, in this explosion, which now has become this huge disaster in the Gulf. I was watching it with my son and I said, So are these guys heroes? I typically think of heroes as not necessarily just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were just doing their job and things malfunctioned or whatever. But to true heroes who are summoned. For the moment, Sweet would say, that's how you become a leader. That's how you acquire it. So the question is which position is right? Maybe there's a truth to all of the above. Might be the most accurate answer. Marcus Buckingham sums it up this way. Leaders are born and then they're made. Leighton Ford gives a similar quote. You could say that leadership is what? How do we acquire leadership? You're born with it. It's developed. And then there's a summons comes that moment. God says, okay, so here, here's where I want you. They are the product of all of the above. Now the test is what does Scripture tell us? Does it give us any hints? So it went back to Scripture to try to figure out the answer to this question. And I realized what there is something to the fact that leadership is something bestowed upon us as a gift. It's there or it's not. And the reason I come to that conclusion is because it is listed as one of the gifts Romans 12 First Corinthians 12 lists among mercy and faith and encouragement is this word prohibited by me, which is translated leadership Mobilizing people to action. Sometimes if you look at spiritual gift list, maybe if you've ever seen them, they'll have leadership as a gift or have administration ever seen that. So administration is like another gift. But I think in fairness to the language, if you look in the Greek language, they're they both really reflect leadership. Kubernetes, as has the idea of steering, piloting a ship. So I'm not sure you can make this big distinct category between somebody who's gifted and at administration, someone who's gifted in leader from at least the gifts listed in Scripture. It is obvious to me, isn't it, to you that there are some people who are gifted in administration. I think of Randy Roberts. That's one of his strong suit. He has the the dust on his desk organized. You know, there are just some people like that. And there are some people that just have this gift of leadership. They just step in. And if there's an absence of leadership, they naturally fill that void. It's just who they are. It's what God has given them. It's also true when you look in Scripture that leadership is a matter of development. The reason we can say that is because look back in Scripture, every single person God obviously has bestowed with leadership is developed. Not to put something in there, but to develop what's already there. Maybe a classic illustration. Well, there are a lot of ones, but two that come to mind are. One is Moses, who didn't himself see himself as the leader, did he, at first? I mean, burning bush, he doesn't go a man. God, you've called the guy. I'm ready. I'm ready to step up. He says I can't speak. Somebody else. I'm not the man for you. But God takes all these years of training and develops him or David, who in the wilderness becomes trained and prepared, or all of the above. Paul was trained out in the Arabian Desert. The disciples were all trained to be leaders. You could say that God is showing us that leadership is something that is trained by the fact that even the Bible really is a training manual of sort. What book would you pick as the best training manual of all within the broader training manual? What book would come to mind?

Speaker 2 [00:15:53] Mm hmm. Because some of the best or.

Dr. John Johnson [00:15:57] Yeah, maybe the pastoral letters. Paul's talking about leadership there, isn't he? Where else? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nehemiah is often the book people look to as well. Here's where we learn a lot of leadership principles. You know, another key one, I think, is proverbs. And it's because, especially when you get to about chapter 25, it's clear or actually before that Chapter 23, he's writing to you now when you sit at a Kings table, this is how you should eat. He talks a lot about what Kings do. He comes to chapter 31 and there's the prayer of King LAMB Meals Mother. In a sense saying, Now this is how Kings Act. Now, what does that tell you? It tells you that this book was written to an emerging class of princes, diplomats, preparing them to be the leaders. If there's any real leadership manual scripture, it's a book of Proverbs. So if you're ever working with an emerging group of leaders and want to take them through a book, I mean, Nehemiah is great. Taking them through the life of Moses or the life of David. But I don't think there's a better book to teach leadership than the Book of Proverbs. So what are we saying? Leadership is clearly a gift. We see that from Romans 12. Leadership is something that's taught. We see that in the books that are focused on leadership. I remember once hearing Ken Blanchard, who wrote One Minute Manager, which was a very popular leadership book, and I heard him after he came to Christ, he gave his testimony at a leadership summit, and he said when he came to Christ, he discovered that everything he had written on leadership had already been taught by Jesus. He hadn't really discovered anything new. To underscore, again, leadership is God clearly has given us something of leadership to be learned here. He wants us to learn how to be leaders. But it's also true. It's I mean, it's huge, isn't it? I mean, it's clear in Scripture the third piece of leadership is a summons, because almost everyone that emerges as a leader is someone who's been called. Obvious examples who comes to mind? Who's called by God and then emerges as a leader. Moses is a great example.

Speaker 2 [00:18:27] Joshua.

Dr. John Johnson [00:18:28] Joshua.

Speaker 3 [00:18:29] Noah.

Dr. John Johnson [00:18:30] Noah. David. Just about all of mine. Abraham.

Speaker 3 [00:18:38] Joseph.

Dr. John Johnson [00:18:39] Yeah, Joseph. Absolutely. Joseph was called. How he was called. Really? Through the dream was me. So he says to his brothers, Hey, I've had this dream. You're going to bow down to me. Yeah, that went over real big. But obviously, clearly, that was a revelation from God. It wasn't something he thought up. Joseph had this summons, though. I'm studying this life right now, and it must be that by the time you get to chapter 40 and he now has been thrown into prison after being in pot papers home and it says the very last verse of chapter 40, and he was forgotten. He must have wondered if I'm some and God. And what am I sitting here in prison, forgotten by the world? That had to be a powerful moment, huh?

Speaker 2 [00:19:38] Sounds like a lot of God's leaders go through that time, like Moses was out in the wilderness.

Dr. John Johnson [00:19:43] Yeah, well, who doesn't really? Right. They all go through their desert, so to speak. It's part of. Well, it gets back to what we said earlier. It's part of leadership training. God takes all that he summons and he gifts and he puts them through the desert. So you think of. Yeah, Paul. Yeah, that's right, Elijah. Yeah. David. For sure. I mean, Joshua, in a sense, had his long understudy under Moses POIs. Abraham Is that true of Abraham? Wow. What was it, 25 years? Of barrenness. You know, it's a it's an amazing thing. I was thinking of this. It says that you remember in chapter 40 of Genesis Joseph is there in prison. And remember, there's the baker. And there's what, The wine test or the butler. Right. And they go, Hey, we've got this dream. And he answers it and he says, Hey, by the way, don't forget me. I shouldn't have been here in the first place. It was it was not right. It was unfair. So remember, I mean, when you see. And what does it say? They forgot him. And then it says Chapter 41, the first verse. Two years later, Farrell had a dream. There you go. Hey. God. It could have given him the dream, like the next day. And then the butler would have said. What? Oh, man. Just last week. So what we read is. Oh, man, I'm sorry. I forgot. So why does God do that? Of course he does that with us. Trust me. It's all part of the training. Leaders are summoned. They are. They are put through the fire, the crucible. And it all goes back to. But nonetheless, they were gifted from the beginning.

Speaker 2 [00:21:43] It's kind of the hearing for this syndrome. I was watching that movie, Billy Joel, Billy Graham, he was young and that is not a bad movie. Tells the story of his relationship with Charles Templeton. Yeah.

Dr. John Johnson [00:21:56] Oh, yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 [00:21:57] And it shows how Billy Graham would do the, like, doing stuff for British. Yeah. You know, his years ago in the Bible College and. Preaching and little churches. Yeah, but then Charles Templeton was like a superstar back then. He was already preaching like, 20,000 people. Mm hmm. You know, but he was the one who bailed out.

Dr. John Johnson [00:22:18] But he never went through the wilderness, huh?

Speaker 2 [00:22:21] No. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. John Johnson [00:22:26] We step back for a moment. Now, we've done this kind of overview of how do we acquire leadership. So you're kind of learning the ropes by now. So let's drill down a little bit and talk about it. What do you think? Training. So does a person have to be born a leader in a church? In a church in Palestine, outside of the church.

Speaker 4 [00:22:54] They've been trained by.

Speaker 2 [00:22:56] The and army or whatever.

Dr. John Johnson [00:23:00] But certainly we can see people who are born leaders who weren't in the church. Right. Either in maybe the military world, corporate world, political world. And there are some who just you just see are just leaderships in their bones.

Speaker 3 [00:23:17] A late bloomer. Mm hmm. I like the idea that a crisis. And sometimes we feel. What's in the.

Dr. John Johnson [00:23:28] Yeah. So one of the questions is Marsha. Let's say a person says, you know, we've all met people like this and maybe you're this way, but we've all met people that go off. I'm not a leader. I just. It's just not me. I. I'm willing to follow. It's really comfortable. I'm not a leader. So, you know, part of what we're trying to sort out here in this question is, but if you take enough leadership courses, could you become a leader? If it was trained, if you went through okay, here's how you set a vision, here's how you work with teams, here are the core values, etc., etc.. What would be our answer to that.

Speaker 2 [00:24:08] By being adequate or good leader? But I think for sure the great leaders have all three in common.

Dr. John Johnson [00:24:14] Yeah. Maybe you'd answer it the same way. Can I play the drums? Well, if I. Went to another. What is it? Drum school. And maybe I could.

Speaker 2 [00:24:29] Get by putting up a rose garden.

Dr. John Johnson [00:24:34] I may not even be invited by the church band. You know.

Speaker 3 [00:24:40] Self drive to Southern Michigan. Yeah. Yeah, but then you just say, I don't want to.

Dr. John Johnson [00:24:48] Right. Which may be to these who go, you know. No, you don't have to be born with it. You can learn it. But the reality is. But do we typically spend our time or would we. And things that aren't us. Right. Somebody said, John, I know you're not a musician, but hey, you know, once you take it as a classic community college in the evening. No, it would be. Would be painful.

Speaker 3 [00:25:18] Parents do that to your kids?

Dr. John Johnson [00:25:20] Well, yeah. Yeah, of course they do. Kids? Yeah. Now, it may be early on, they might say, Well, let's see, we're going to experiment here, you know? So because I grew up as a tennis players, I took my son to a Dutch professional when we lived in the Netherlands, and he got great training. I worked with them a lot on the court, but I still remember the day we were driving there. And I looked at him and I said. You don't really want to be here, do you? And he said.

Speaker 2 [00:25:54] No.

Speaker 4 [00:25:55] I said that sometimes the real the good leader, they are humble. They have the ability to be leader. Yeah. Position. They they do a good job. So whatever they said on Monday. Yeah. Yeah. The humble I mean.

Dr. John Johnson [00:26:14] Yeah. Or and that's different than someone who says I'm not a leader and it's true. You're right. You are not a leader, you know, But there are some who use that kind of false humility. But underneath it all, man, they can lead the charge if they're called to.

Speaker 3 [00:26:34] Speaking in the church, in your home, you need volunteer. Mm. Uh, how often do we put someone in a position of.

Dr. John Johnson [00:26:42] Yes.

Speaker 3 [00:26:43] It really.

Dr. John Johnson [00:26:45] We even a lot of times do that at even the highest levels of leadership like board level. I remember my first church. I inherited a number of board members and as I size them up over time, I realized they were good guys. They had a heart for the Lord. They weren't leaders at all. And what we have tended to do a lot of times in the church is to say, okay, so we're looking for men to serve on the board. So here's our qualification. You must meet the qualifications. Of what? First Timothy three. Right. So if you meet the character qualifications you're in. What I've learned to say is, okay, that's one piece of it. But here's what I want to know. Are you gifted? If you don't have the gift of leadership, please don't let the church suffer under your false leadership. Because not only does the church suffer, but you suffer because it really is not where you want to be either.

Speaker 2 [00:27:44] But I think it is a different level of leadership. I've got some guys on my board. I know that they're not naturally world leaders, but I know that they're helpers. If I was going to elect someone to be the children's ministry, I would want them to have a different leadership. We're not going to have the gift of leadership. But then, just like we said earlier, that's going to be thrust upon them because of different.

Dr. John Johnson [00:28:06] Yeah. I mean, what I'd say to add to that is, is that especially starting at the leadership level of the church, I think they have to be gifted as leaders. They really do at board level, your elder board, let's say at other levels, if all things are equal, you've got someone who's a leader and someone who isn't. Well, then go with the leader. You just may not have that luxury. But that's part of why the requirement of this course is to develop a leadership notebook. Because what I want you to do is go out there and train leaders. Now, part of that is finding those who are gifted and then train them. Because a lot of the problem in the church today is it doesn't have good leaders, but it's because we've been too timid to say, no, you shouldn't be on leadership if it's not your gift. And B, just because you are gifted doesn't mean you know how to do it. So let's train you.

Speaker 3 [00:29:03] Best analogy is the right people and the best. Yeah.

Speaker 2 [00:29:08] Right.

Dr. John Johnson [00:29:09] And the other half of that is get the wrong people off the bus.

Unidentified [00:29:13] Under the bus.

Dr. John Johnson [00:29:14] Well, no, we just need to shift them. That's where the analogy breaks down. We need to move them to where they fit. So, like half those guys who weren't leaders on the board, it wasn't a matter of saying, hey, get lost. It was, let's find where you fit. And sometimes that's true of pastors, too. I mean, as we said, some pastors don't have the gift of leadership. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be pastors, but they shouldn't necessarily be in the lead role of pastor. So pastor over here, but not here. Okay. What else going with this?

Speaker 4 [00:29:56] Sometimes a circumstance like this storm in the war. And the difficult situation with train. Yes.

Dr. John Johnson [00:30:09] One or two things. It suddenly opens and releases. What is there that gift that just needed that moment to see it unleashed? Or maybe it is someone who isn't a leader but needs to exercise some degree of leadership for that moment, but probably should be careful they don't immediately assume, okay, I'm a leader. Maybe the situation called for it. I've used this illustration already, I think. But let's say you're not gifted in mercy, but you're in a situation accident on the highway. Well, you're not going to go Well, I'm sorry. It's not my gift. But no, you're going to show compassion and and mercy in that moment. But it may not be necessarily naturally who you are. So we all are going to have moments, whether we're leaders or not. We need to exercise leadership.

Speaker 2 [00:30:59] Let me ask you this. You think, Timothy, you have to give the leadership.

Dr. John Johnson [00:31:03] Because Paul has to exhort him about his timidity? I don't know. It's a good question.

Speaker 2 [00:31:09] He was thrust in a position of leadership.

Dr. John Johnson [00:31:12] We just don't see him emerge beyond maybe this time frame as somebody who stands out as a leader. Yeah, that's a great question. He would think, however, that whoever was going to invest him and mentor is going to be somebody who can take the reins of leadership that he can leave over here.

Speaker 2 [00:31:35] So I have a certain agnosticism about spiritual beliefs. There's a lot of stuff I read about spiritual gifts, not in the Bible, but in literature, in the Christian book store shelves. That is so speculative. And then I see these tests, spiritual gifts, tests and things like that. They're actually describing personalities, not supernatural enabling. When I when I read it, it's almost like a horoscope when university should come from the prophet or something like that. And I go, Where does that come from? Mm hmm. Because I know from personal friends I'm a pastor that really doesn't have real strong gifts of leadership because I'm kind of a. Soul most at heart. I'd rather just go and do my own thing. But the rest of the world. Dubai. But God called me to do this. And I have to fight and work hard to not go that route. Yeah, you know. But I think it's part of the way God is trying to define me as a person who stressed me not just, you know, to clean up. Jerry Project was supposed to be a pastor who is not like that. But one of the ways he's reminded me of, like, I have to daily crucify myself and say, I got to do what's good for the. The whole body, not just right. Yeah.

Dr. John Johnson [00:32:51] You're right on that point that a lot of weird stuff out there on spiritual gifts. But you start with the basic start point that the Bible does teach. There are gifts, and we're encouraged to to know our gifts. Gifts are God's domain. So starting with that premise, therefore, then I ought to be conscious of how am I gifted and then thinking in terms of all the different gifts God has given us. It's a matter of that making sure we're all positioned in the right places. So I like to sometimes, you know, say to the church something like this that our tendency is to look at church like this. So here's the gifted leader. And then here all the all the passive observers, kind of like going to a Pops concert or something when really what scripture describes is all of us gathering together with our particular gift or gifts, I should say, ministering them to one another. This is a picture, right, of what the church should look like, that we gather as people who have come to grips with what our strengths are. One of those is going to be a leader who has a particular function. Somebody over here who has the gift of mercy has a particular function. But we're all functioning. And I like to think of it, too, because it's biblical. What Scripture says that ultimately gifts our grace. Patients for 7 to 10 to find gifts as chorus. I like to think of it as cast through charisma to. God is that dispenser of grace. He shows grace upon us and that grace flows through our particular gift. So what's happening here is a church that's fully functional, is that people are getting filled with grace. The antithesis of what God intends the church to be is a graceless environment. And yet many churches are grace less. God's design is just to pump his grace in the church, and it comes out through our particular charisma. So a leader leadership gift, which is the same as any other, has the primary mission of dispensing grace. If I'm doing my role of leadership in the church, the church is being filled with grace. It just comes through my particular gift where somebody say with the gift of wisdom over here is also dispensing grace, but it's coming through that particular grid, if you will. Any other thoughts? Questions?

Speaker 3 [00:35:36] Yeah. Timothy. You have to give to the leader that you had mentioned. Wilson fomenting in that. What about today's church and are we breaking up on the investing? In the second or the third tier of development developing people. We do have a mentoring. Are we dropping the ball?

Dr. John Johnson [00:36:04] We may be dropping it at all three levels in that level. Number one. Leadership is something innate. We may not be spending enough time helping people to discover what their gift is, helping leaders to come to grips with the fact that they are gifted that way. I wonder how many people will graduate to heaven from church that we never really raised up as leaders because we never helped point them towards that gift. The second is not training people to be leaders, and then the third is not taking seriously this whole aspect of some of call up challenging people, asking them about their calling on their life. Because that language is used all through Scripture.

Speaker 3 [00:36:56] Give me one example of.

Dr. John Johnson [00:37:00] How that's used in Scripture up call.

Speaker 3 [00:37:05] And we need to be the one to call.

Dr. John Johnson [00:37:07] No, no. That this is something divine and holy that comes from God. What a church needs to do is challenge people to think seriously through what God's doing in their life. It's God calling them. In other words, if I'm going to look at a potential elder in a village, it seems to me if I'm doing my job, I want I want to know this. Is this your gifting? And if it is, how do you know what you're gifting? I mean, what are the signals? I generally use three things. Is this something you're passionate about? Secondly, is this something that's affirmed by those closest to you, to those who know you best say? It's amazing when you do this. Every time you do this, I'm amazed. You do this so well. And thirdly, is there a sense of divine blessing? Do you find yourself, when you do this, do you sense something of God's empowerment that you say, I couldn't do this on my own, but something like kicks in, you know, in a spiritual way? So I want to ask people that. Can you believe you're a gifted leader? What evidence is that? It's my passion. It's what I've been affirmed over and over and over. It's what God seems to bless when a man tells me that, for example, a woman tells me that, Wow, that's pretty convincing. But then I want to know. Tell me a little bit about how if this is your gift, what things have you done to develop this gift? Especially at an elder level. Well, if you haven't served on any other areas of leadership, if there hasn't been an interest and that's not a good signal, if you haven't readiness, if a person is truly gifted as a leader, I would think that you'd gravitate towards wanting to learn about it. Right. It's what we do. Why do I have two shelves packed just here, let alone at home? With books on leadership. Because I teach this course. If I find a great book on leadership, I just buy it. It's just instinctive. So it's not me. It's just something planted in. So I want to know that. What have you done to develop that? And something of a summons in your life. What do you feel God's calling you to in these days? Mean, I love it if a man says I really feel a calling to be part of the leadership. If all those things line up, I feel like that's a pretty good indicator. Along with, of course, the spiritual qualifications.

Speaker 3 [00:39:53] You mentioned leadership versus management. Mm hmm. I was definitely.

Dr. John Johnson [00:39:59] Going to give you a real clear answer. Yes and no. Here's what I mean by that. I'm learning in my own life more and more that a leader, a truly capable leader, can't get away from the management piece, in part to be truly an effective leader. Now, I know a lot of leaders who would say I'm a great visionary. I'm kind of the idea guy. I can see where we need to go, but I'm a lousy, detailed person. I understand that. In fact, most leaders I have met are not detail people. I'm not a detail person. Now I like things done and done well. Adam's father in law is my executive pastor. He. Wouldn't you say, Adam? He's a detail guy. Extremely. He's a check.

Speaker 2 [00:40:45] Everything.

Dr. John Johnson [00:40:46] What's that label? Yeah, he checklists everything. Well, now he's an administrator. So I worked great with him. He complements me and I compliment him well. We're just wired to work together like that. But my yes and no is that it doesn't remove from me the responsibility of getting to a level of that detail to. Ashley. Jim is his name. Has to think in terms of leadership, too. He, in many ways is a leader himself, for sure. So I don't know if I'd put him in strict silos. I think a good administrator has a degree of leadership and I think a great leader is sensitive to. Making sure ideas get launched by a certain amount of organization. I think that's what I'm learning in my life right now in particular. I read this book entitled Checklist Manifesto. You heard of that book? I mean, on the title on the surface you go. Checklist Manifesto, all that sounds like an, you know, a really interesting book, right? Actually, it's a very fascinating book. It's written by a physician that discovered that leaders who are at their best make checklists. It's a little bit back to the administration part, right? He got a lot of pushback from leaders who go, I don't have time for that. And he said, no, I want to challenge you to incorporate this as part of what you do. I know it's not natural for you to do it, but just do it. A lot of the book is how that radically changed lives. Enough that has caused me to not that I've never done it before, but to more intentionally checklist my life. Or this book. I just finished Vision to Reality, which a big part of his book is saying, Fiction never moves to reality unless you put together an action list. It will never be reality unless you think it through at that level. I don't know. It seems like God has proposed to books in my life to say, okay, fine, you're leader, but you can't escape this piece to be an effective leader. So that's why I say that's a long answer, too. It's kind of a little bit of yes and no. So.

Speaker 2 [00:43:12] Yeah, I read somewhere in the past. It's just that there is room for the. Task without a vision is daunting. So I've got an inside combination.

Dr. John Johnson [00:43:21] Yeah, it really is. It's. It's got to be both hand. Exactly right. That's a good way to put it. Okay, so let's take a ten minute break, and then in our remaining time, I want to talk a little bit about your own strengths. Okay. Since we're talking about leadership acquired.