Lessons for leadership drawn specifically from Scripture

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The Character of Leadership: Moses

In this study of the character of leaders, I find myself thinking about “the character of characters.” A “character” is a person, often someone who plays a part in a story and is an example from whom we can learn, but it is also a trait or attribute that can be applied to that person and to his/her leadership. When we study the character of that character – identifying biblical characters, and then identifying something in their character that can teach us something about who we are and how we lead – we learn things about the character of leadership that can be applied in our own lives. In this week’s episode, we are learning from Moses.

When I introduced this idea of studying the character of characters last week, I shared a personal illustration of my dad doing a temperament analysis on me and finding that my temperament was comparable to Moses’. So it only seems fitting to me that Moses is the first character that I talk about, and we’ll start with a little bit of brief overview of that character – of who he was.

We know that Moses was the deliverer of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. Because of his role, he is an incredibly significant figure in the Bible story. He was rescued from potential death and destruction as an infant, to be raised in the household of royalty. He stepped in to defend his people, but tried to do it in his own terms and in his own way, which sent him off to a period of isolation for a long time. It was in that desert experience that God prepared him for the task that he would have, the one for which God had appointed him. In that task, he interacted with the pharaoh, speaking on behalf of God, to be the instrument that God used not only to free the people from slavery, but to also show how this deliverance would be a picture of the coming deliverance of sin through the Savior Jesus Christ. Moses then led his people out of Egypt, to the threshold of the promised land, where they refused to trust God, and then Moses was tasked with leading the people for another 40 years as they wandered around in the desert until God‘s chastisement and judgment was complete for the sin that they had committed. In the end, Moses was never privileged to see the place to which he was called to deliver the people.

I know that is a woefully inadequate summary of who Moses was, but even in that very brief overview, there are a number of character traits or attributes that we could pull from the life of Moses, from the character of this character, but let me point out one or two that I go together and apply to your leadership struggle. I think one of the more interesting ones that we probably don’t think about that much is that of a lack of confidence and feelings of inadequacy, which we tend to refer to as the imposter syndrome. I know that Scripture doesn’t say this directly, but based on his comments and his experience, I have to wonder if Moses often felt like he was not capable of doing the job. I think he knew that, even though he was raised in the royal household, he was not actually royalty, but he had to act like it. When that season was behind him, and God spoke to him at the burning bush, he tried to find every way possible to get out of the job because he didn’t think he could handle it and he didn’t think he had the skills to do it. When the people were wandering in the wilderness, and they were complaining, Moses would cry out to God and ask why he was given these people to have to take care of. All of those things in some way reflect the hidden personal fear of incompetence or inadequacy. It is the feeling that you are not cut out for this, or that you are in over your head, or that you’re just not capable and eventually everyone will figure out that you’re not and that you have been faking it all along – again, known as the imposter syndrome.

I think the reason why it’s good for us to see this perspective of Moses’ character is because leaders often struggle with feeling like they’re not really capable, but having to pretend like they are while not letting anyone know the struggle. They know how much they don’t know, they know where they are lacking (even if other people can’t see it) and that’s what makes them struggle. I know, because I have been there. However, the other side of this that we see in the character of Moses is a commitment to the call that God had given. When Moses said to God that he was not capable, God reminded Moses of the Lord‘s presence, and then equipped him with the tools that he needed, and sent him to do the task anyway. God wasn’t depending on Moses’ capability, but rather expecting Moses to depend on God’s. And because Moses knew that he was not adequate but believed that God was, Moses obeyed, committed to carrying out the task to which God had called him. When the people complained in the wilderness, Moses continued to be faithful and to serve God and the task to which he was called and even defended the people when God would get angry with them. He remain committed to obedient action, regardless of how he felt.

So when we look at the character of this character, Moses, I think those are tremendous lessons for us. You may be good at what you do, but you also know where your flaws and faults are, and you know where you struggle, even when others are not aware. Remember that when you are called to a task, God is not depending on you, rather, you are depending on God. He has equipped you, He has a plan and purpose, He knows what you can and cannot do and what He has equipped and prepared you to do, and He’s placed you in a position for a purpose. Commit to faithfully obeying and serving the Lord, regardless of how you feel, knowing that God is God and he has a plan, and you get to be part of it.

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Podcast, Season 2, Episode 39: The Character of Leadership: An Introduction

A “character” is a person, often someone who plays a part in a story and is an example from whom we can learn, but it is also a trait or attribute that can be applied to that person and to his/her leadership. When we study the character of that character – identifying biblical characters, and then identifying something in their character that can teach us something about who we are and how we lead – we learn things about the character of leadership that can be applied in our own lives.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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The Character of Leadership: Introduction

When I was in high school, my dad, who was a pastor, was implementing a temperament profile as a teaching and counseling tool for himself and for a class he was teaching. It was a profile that identified certain temperaments and traits and then compared them to different persons in the Bible. He had me take this profile, and my matching biblical counterpart was Moses (who was described as a melancholy temperament, which seemed to match my temperament). This was a great learning experience for me, and probably my first introduction to personality profiles, and how they could help you understand yourself.

Recently, something reminded me of that experience, of learning about myself by looking at a biblical character (and in my case, Moses). But thinking about that character led me down a different path of thinking about two different uses of the word, character, and about how they can work together to help us learn more about leadership.

In the first use, a “character” is a person, often someone who plays a part in a story. It’s typically not a perfect person (in fact only Jesus was perfect), and often it is someone who is far from perfection. However, it is frequently an influential person, and in some form, an example from whom we can learn. Therefore, to understand a character is to know a little bit about who he/she was, and the context in which they lived or operated.

In the second use, as a separate definition, “character” is a trait or attribute that can be applied to that person and to his/her leadership. It is the identification of a particular behavior, attitude, or characteristic that defines the type of person they are, and is reflected in their conduct.

That word “character,” then, applies to both a person and an attribute. With that in mind, I think that there is lot that we can learn from the character of characters in the Bible. Therefore, there is great value for us in identifying biblical characters, and then identifying something that stands out in their character that can teach us something about who we are and how we lead. So for the next few weeks, and probably periodically after that, I want to select various people in the Bible and ask questions like, “Who is this character?” “What is their character?”, and “What do we learn from the character of this character?”.

I have often told my own children, “You learn most things from experience, but it’s usually less painful if it is someone else’s experience.” In this case, we are learning from someone else’s experience by looking at their character and the lessons of their successes and failures because of that character, and then seeing how to put the character of that character into practice in our own lives. We are learning about the character of leadership.

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Quote Your Dad

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.” John 3:16

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Jesus Rose for You

There are two sides to the coin of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary. One side is the price that He paid by His death as a perfect, sinless man, which was the sufficient price to pay the penalty for the sins of mankind. That’s why last week I made he point that Jesus died for you. The other side of that coin, however, is the victory that was achieved when the perfect man who was also fully God rose from the grave victorious over sin and death. That’s why I can also so that Jesus rose for you.

Jesus died for you and me because we were not able to pay the penalty that was necessary for our own sin, which also meant that we would be forever separated from God because of our sin. But thankfully, and graciously, God provided the substitution for us through his son Jesus Christ, who sacrificed his life on Good Friday but then rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. And that, my friends, is what we really celebrate! Jesus died for you to pay your penalty, but he rose for you to make it eternal. And because Jesus died and rose again, the Bible tells us that all we have to do is place our faith in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross to receive salvation, and the assurance that we will spend our eternity in heaven with God.

Jesus died for you to pay for your sin, and then He rose for you so that you could be reconciled to God. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus, accepting His payment for your son, I would encourage you during this Easter time to make that decision. Jesus died for you. Jesus rose for you. All that is required of you is to believe.

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Quote Your Dad

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

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Jesus Died for You

Easter is almost here. You can tell because the seasonal aisle at the store is full of plastic eggs, Easter baskets and candy, chocolate bunnies, stuffed bunnies, and all the things that tell you that the important holiday that celebrates the Easter Bunny bringing candy-filled plastic eggs and pastel-colored hard-boiled eggs has arrived. But is that what really makes this day significant? Sure, it’s fun to decorate the eggs and give Easter baskets to kids, but is there a deeper purpose for Easter?

You probably already know the answer to that. Beyond the Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies, the true focus of this day is Jesus. Specifically, it is something that Jesus did. Even more specifically, it is something that Jesus did for you. What exactly is it that He did? He died for you!

Easter is really about that. It’s about “celebrating” the death and resurrection of Jesus. (Next week, I want to focus on the significance of His resurrection, but this week I am focusing on the significance of His death.) Now, I use that word “celebrate” carefully, because it is not a celebration of the beating, torture, and death of someone who was viewed as antagonistic to societal and cultural norms. Rather, it is a celebration of what that death accomplished.

You see, Jesus – the Son of God and one of the persons in the Holy Trinity, and therefore fully divine – took on human form, born as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, and lived about 33 years as a human being, a living person like you and me. However, because of His divinity, He was able to live sinlessly even though He faced temptations just as we do. Because He lived a sinless life, He was, therefore, qualified to pay the penalty that our sin deserved, that we are unable to pay. The result was that the crucifixion of this perfect person satisfied the debt we owe, enabling you and me to be reconciled to God.

Our sin separates us from God, because God is perfect and we are not, so our sin disqualifies us from spending eternity with God in heaven. Our imperfection means we cannot go to a perfect heaven to dwell in the presence of a Holy God without something being done to resolve that issue. (My dad once said, if you find a perfect church, don’t join it because you’ll mess it up.) The wonderful thing is that something was done. Jesus, perfect Jesus, died on the cross to be the sacrifice that pays for all of our sin. His death paid for our sin, so that God would se.e us through His substitutionary act, seeing us as perfect through Jesus so that eternity with God became possible. To say it simply, Jesus died for you so that you could live with God.

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Be A Better Leader: The Five Be-attitudes of Better Leadership (part 12, Be Trustworthy . . . by Being Safe)

In this “Be A Better Leader” series of website articles and podcasts, I am talking about a variety of attributes, characteristics, and skills that are essential to effective leadership, and discussing how they are reflected in practice. I have grouped these things into five categories of what a leader ought to be, which is why I am labeling them as the “Be-attitudes of Better Leadership.” These five categories are: “Be Genuine,” “Be Relational,” “Be Trustworthy,” Be Knowledgeable,” and “Be Excellent.” We have already looked at being genuine and being relational, so today in part 12, I am continuing our discussion of the third category, “Be Trustworthy,” and more specifically, I am talking about the importance of being safe.

Have you ever seen someone’s spirit get crushed? I have. I can remember sitting in a fast food restaurant when I was in my early 20’s, when a young boy at a nearby table spilled his soft drink. His mother immediately reacted by loudly and harshly belittling him with her words, and by publicly humiliating him. He was visibly crushed. If he learned anything from that experience, it most likely was that accidents are unforgivable and should never happen. He learned that, in his world, it was not safe to make a mistake.

When people believe that it is not safe to make a mistake or to fail, they will stop putting themselves at risk. They will stop trusting people, taking chances, putting in effort, and growing. Instead of taking a risk, or learning something new, or stepping up to the plate, they will revert to a place of self-preservation. They do this to protect themselves from the consequences that could come with failure, by removing the risk of failure altogether.

We need to remember, however, that failure plays an important role in the development of leadership. In fact, it plays an important role in the development of all people. For that reason, leaders need to have the right perspective regarding failure, so that they can intentionally harness its power for good, and a right perspective on failure includes three important ideas.

  1. Failure is certain. We are imperfect people, living in an imperfect world. We each have particular strengths, but we also each have particular weaknesses. We learn by experience. This combination of ideas guarantees us that we will make mistakes, and that at some point, we will fail. You can see illustrations of this everywhere you look – babies learning to walk, teenagers learning to drive, students taking tests, professional football quarterbacks throwing interceptions, and countless other examples. The reality is that people make mistakes, and this will always be true. And while failures and mistakes sometimes have the potential to be fatal, generally failure is defeating only when you let it keep you down. As General George Custer once said, “It’s not how many times you get knocked down that count, it’s how many times you get back up.”
  2. Failure is valuable. Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Clearly, he viewed every mistake, every setback, as a learning opportunity. That’s what makes failure valuable. It provides an opportunity to learn, to change, and to grow. By implication, if you don’t learn from your failures, you won’t change and grow; rather, you will continue to make the same mistakes. This differentiation is one of the attributes that characterizes leaders – they are able to learn from their mistakes and improve. However, the underlying context that makes this work is an environment that allows someone the opportunity to learn from mistakes. It only makes sense, then, that if it is not safe to make mistakes and learn from them, people will avoid behaviors that bring the possibility of failure, and therefore will miss the opportunity for growth that comes from those same failures.
  3. It can be safe to fail. Given both the certainty and the value of failure, it becomes important for leaders to cultivate a culture that makes it safe to try and fail, and there are three steps that can be taken that help to ensure this:
    • First, provide opportunities for people to try. Experience is such an important part of growth and development, but experience only comes when someone has the opportunity to try – to lead a project, manage a task, facilitate a discussion, plan an event, and so on. What we have to keep in mind is that (like a baby learning to walk) people will stumble in the process of learning something new and stretching themselves.
    • Therefore, the second step is to have a response that is instructive, not destructive. Use it as a teachable experience, one from which they can learn. Take time to evaluate the causes and contributing factors, the mistakes that were made, and provide guidance that will ultimate produce greater growth, confidence, and development.
    • Finally, the third step is to give people a chance to get back up after they have fallen, to “get back in the saddle” and try again. The goal is that they have learned from their failures and become more competent and skilled, which will be better for everyone. And if they don’t learn, then you have; you now know that they are beyond their limits of performance, at least at this point in their personal development, and therefore you, the leader, can choose to not give them those opportunities again.

President Theodore Roosevelt once declared, “Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much or suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” Failure is an important part of life. Make it safe for people to fail and then to learn.  When you make it safe for them to do so, they will learn to trust you, and will therefore be freed up to try more and do more, which will benefit both of you in the end.

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Quote Your Dad

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

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The Truth About Christmas

I can remember the first time my oldest child asked me if Santa was real. She must have been about 5 or 6 years old, and I am sure she had heard things from friends at school and wanted to know from her parents if Santa was a real person who delivered presents for Christmas. At that age, she already knew that Jesus was her personal Savior, having come to an awareness of her need for Jesus to save her when she was 4 and 1/2 years old. I know that seems young (and it is), but her decision was totally driven by her own questions and her own choice to follow Jesus, unprompted by us as her parents, and was followed at that young age already with the realization of how that shaped her choices.

But, back to Santa. When she asked us that question – “Is Santa real?” – I was faced with a dilemma. Do I tell a little lie and preserve the fantasy for a little child, or do I tell the truth and squash childhood imagination? In the end, realized that it wasn’t a true “either/or” choice, and so we chose to tell the truth while also preserving imagination and fun. Because she asked, we knew she was seeking to make sense of the world around her, so we told her the truth – “No, Santa is not real . . .” – but then framed it into a purpose of imagination and joy – “. . . but it’s fun to pretend and imagine the stories of Santa, so we do it just for fun at Christmas time. But the real person we celebrate at Christmas is Jesus.”

Why was this important for us? Because we wanted our child to grow up with an understanding of the difference between fantasy (the Santa Clause we talk about at Christmas) and meaningful truth (the significance of the birth of Jesus). That’s the most important message of Christmas. Not that we receive gifts, or that Santa knows who is naughty or nice, or that reindeer can fly. The real message is that at this time, over 2000 years ago, God entered into our physical realm in the person of His Son, born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph. He did this so that Jesus could live His life as both fully God and fully man (theologians call this the Hypostatic Union), and live it sinlessly, so that He would be qualified to become the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins through His death on the cross, burial, and resurrection. In doing this, He paid the penalty for our sins and opened the door for us to be reconciled to God. And that’s the Gospel message: that Jesus paid for our sins so that we could receive salvation by trusting fully in His work on the cross.

That’s the truth about Christmas. It’s the season that brought Jesus into our midst, which in turn would make salvation available to all who believe, not in the “jolly old elf” who brings us presents, but in the real, divine person who came to save us from our sin. My friend, if you have not placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, as the one and only means of salvation from your sin and reconciliation with God, I urge you to do that today. Acknowledge your sin and accept the payment of Jesus. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

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