At the Awaken event, I had a chance to be a part of a panel discussion on the Leadership Matrix sharing about my preferred leadership style: “The Power of Execution.”
Like any good researcher, to prepare for my message I googled the word “execution.” After learning a great deal about capital punishment, the electric chair, and even the guillotine, I decided to go back to the basics of what it means to be a more corporate leader. Corporate leaders are a mix of vision and mission, goals and tasks. They can see the future and know the tasks it will take to get there. They tend to emphasize accountability and clarity. Execution is all about delivering what was promised.
For years churches have been led by teachers and administrators and have more recently been led by more corporate leaders. These three styles fall short of Jesus’ example: servant leadership. If the business world (Lead Like Jesus, Jesus CEO) is learning more about leading like Jesus, shouldn’t the church?
Too often, we tend to appreciate, value, and only recruit people who lead just like us. Others appreciate, value, and recruit people who have different leadership styles, but they don’t ask them to lead (but to serve us).
In Good to Great, the level 5 leader (servant leader) has a personal humility and a professional will. They are willing to lay aside their own personal goals for the good of the organization.
Our churches should move from visionary environments to visional environments.
From “you help me accomplish what I want to do” to “I will help you accomplish your vision.” As equippers (Eph. 4:11), we should be freeing others to accomplish their God-given potential and dreams within the context of our values and convictions.
For more related to this topic, check out:
An article about Laurie Beth Jones’ using Jesus as a model for business leaders
My review of Built to Last by Jim Collins
My article called Billy Graham, Dictators, and Jesus?
Recruiting Leaders (and Avoiding Burnout) (Exodus 18)
