| The
second President of the United States, John Adams, once observed, "Power
must never be trusted without a check." He and his fellow founding fathers
wisely included checks and balances into the constitutional structure of our government,
so that no single branch of government can run roughshod over the people and the
process of government. The
principle here is accountability. Government should be accountable to the people,
as expressed through the various branches of government. On November 2, Americans
will go to the polls and remind politicians at all levels of government of their
own need for accountability. As
Christian leaders, we also need to recognize we are accountable. Certainly we
are accountable to God, to whom our ultimate allegiance and commitment belongs.
Yet we are also accountable to the people we have been called to lead and serve.
I grow concerned hearing about pastors who insist that they are the ultimate authority
within their congregation and that their decisions should not be questioned. That
type of perspective is not limited to the church, however; leaders in any kind
of organization can forget that they have been called to lead, not rule. The
effective leader remembers that he or she is accountable both vertically and horizontally.
And if the vertical relationship is properly understood, the horizontal part won't
be hard at all. Michael
Duduit, Editor
michael@leaderlinks.com
www.michaelduduit.com
Please
forward your copy of LeadingNow to friends
and colleagues who are also interested in Christian leadership issues. Thanks
for your help in leading others to LeadingNow! 
The
x-factor is management In
an interview in this month's Leader Links,
Bob Buford (founder of Leadership Network) talks about the vision that led him
to become involved in Christian leadership: "I
said, 'If I'm successful in making a good deal of money, what am I going to do
with that money?' And I resolved when I was 34, and still have this written down,
that I was going to redeploy that money into the highest cause I could find, which
was the cause of God and Christ, and that cause has two parts to it. First the
individual part that might be indicated by people trying to discover purpose in
their lives, and secondly the organizational part. And the organizational part
was the church in the United States. "So
I said, 'What could I do to be useful within that world?' And the answer was —
I felt, and still feel — that in any organization, whether it's a church
or parachurch organization or business enterprise, the x-factor is management.
So I began a parallel career when I was 42 in trying to find the people who wanted
to grow good-sized churches — basically who wanted to grow a church to the
scale of the need, rather than the way most churches were, which was growing the
church to the scale of 100-200 people and what a pastor wanted to do. "The
way we went about that was to seek out the innovators and entrepreneurs in the
church world. Early among those were Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, and quite a
few others of that character. They became the two most visible of that type. Then
along came the Andy Stanleys and those that have learned from Bill and Rick and
a number of others. We asked them, "What can we do to be useful to you?"
And what they said — and we did a fair amount of research to discover this
— is "Put us in a room together with our peers and let us figure out
from one another how to operate these mega-church type structures." The world
of seminaries and denominations wasn't much concerned with those types, because
they were probably 5% of churches, at the most. So that's what we did. "The
current mission of Leadership Network is connecting innovators to multiply. And
that's in a way where we started. We put the smart people in a room together and
provided a safe and neutral environment for them to exchange ideas that really
had to do with leadership and management for the most part." (Click
here to read the full interview.) Click
here to learn more about Buford's book Finishing Well.
The
best advice . . . Someone
asked Fred Smith what was the best advice he had ever received. Fred responded:
"That one is hard to identify, but an evangelist gave me a verse of scripture
when I was young that has marked my life. He paraphrased one of the Proverbs,
'Take the gift that God has given you and use it and you will stand before great
men.' It has been a lifelong source of inspiration and direction." (from
Breakfast with Fred, www.breakfastwithfred.com)
Attitude
helps create winners In
an article in the September Leader Links adapted
from his new book Today Matters (Warner Faith), John Maxwell points to
the importance of attitude: "On
June 28, 1959, Joe Louis defended his heavyweight boxing title against Tony 'Two-Ton'
Galento in Yankee Stadium. Galento wasn't a particularly talented fighter, but
he could take a punch and he was a big hitter. In the second round, Louis knocked
Galento down and seemed to be controlling the fight. But in the third round, Galento
knocked the champ down. Louis immediately jumped back to his feet and went after
his opponent. When Louis went to his corner, his trainer chastised him: 'You know
you're supposed to take the full count when you go down. Why didn't you stay down
for nine?' "'What!'
answered Louis, 'and give him a chance to rest?' Louis pummeled Galento so badly
in the fourth round that the referee stopped the fight. "In
today's competitive culture, everybody is looking for an edge. Top athletes and
top businesspeople alike know that all things being equal — attitude wins.
But this is also true: All things not being equal, attitude sometimes still wins.
Possessing a great attitude is like having a secret weapon." (Click
here to read the complete article.) Click
here to learn more about the book Today Matters.
"Business
is what, if you don't have any, you go out of." (Earl Wilson)
| From
this month's Leader Links In
an article adapted from the book Reviewing Leadership, Robert Banks and
Bernice talk about the future of leadership: "(Max)
De Pree points to four critical questions that leaders must ponder consistently
over the course of their leading: 1.
What is my purpose in life?
2. What do I owe?
3. What will I promise?
4.
What may I keep?
"De
Pree insightfully notes that as a society we need to care more about faithfulness
than success, more about the potential of communities than individual accomplishment,
and more about inclusiveness than winning. The values of society are not always
the best guide and indeed often fail to reflect the true essence of leadership.
If leadership is to survive, there must be an environment of high moral standards
among leaders and followers, and this has the best chance of coming to expression
as faith-based leaders live out their core convictions and Christian faith in
everyday life and work." (Go
to www.leaderlinks.com
to read the full article. Click
here to learn more about the book Reviewing Leadership.) |
In
case you missed last month's Leader Links: •
In an interview with Leader Links, Orlando Magic
general manager Pat Williams talks about the place of inspiration and motivation
in the work of leadership: "Lee Iacocca said leadership is nothing more than
motivating people. That's his definition of leadership. I think inspiration and
motivation go together and as leaders we have to be doing both. Inspiration I
think is more of an inside job — something that you are trying to create
within people that wells up inside of them. Motivation may be more external where
you're trying to set up goals or strategies to get people to achieve more. But
in both areas it a big part of leadership and it requires a very careful study
of people. None of us are inspired or motivated the same way. And the successful
leaders really study their people carefully and know what it is that inspires
them and knows what it takes to motivate them. (Click
here to read the full interview.) •
The August issue of Leader Links contains
an interview with James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com and former deputy
editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal. He and Federalist
Society executive vice president Leonard Leo recently produced a fascinating new
book, Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House
(Free Books). (Click
here to read the complete interview.) •
In an article adapted from the book Christian Reflections on the Leadership
Challenge, the authors observe that leadership is personal: "Because
credibility is the foundation, the individual leading is central to any discussion
of exemplary leadership. We cannot engage in any serious discussion of the subject
in the purely abstract or conceptual. Leadership is personal. It's not about them;
ultimately it's about you and me. "Research
on employee engagement clearly supports this message. Surveys from eighty thousand
managers in over four hundred companies reveal that it's the immediate manager
who has more influence on employees' engagement with their work than any other
single factor — more important, for example, than pay, benefits, or bonuses.
It's the immediate manager who has the most influence on whether a person voluntarily
stays or leaves an organization. In other words, people don't quit their organizations;
they quit their leaders. Expand this research to religious institutions and you
find similar results. The spiritual commitment of congregational members is driven
by their congregational engagement, and that engagement is directly related to
the kind of leadership they are getting . . . However and wherever you express
your values and beliefs, you have to take leadership personally. Seizing the initiative
has absolutely nothing to do with position. It's about attitude and action."
(Click
here to read the complete article.) Remember
that you can always check articles and interviews from past issues at the Leader
Links archives. Just go to www.leaderlinks.com
and click on the Archives link. | 