John W. Gardner, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, who also directed a leadership study project in Washington, D.C., has pinpointed five characteristics that set “leader” managers apart from run-of-the-mill managers:

1. They are long-term thinkers who see beyond the day’s crisis and the quarterly report.

2. Their interest in the company does not stop with the unit they are heading. They want to know how all of the company’s departments affect one another, and they are constantly reaching beyond their specific area of influence.

3. They put heavy emphasis on vision, values, and motivation.

4. They have strong people skills.

5. They don’t accept the status quo.

Lead Others

Actually, a manager needs the ability not only to make good decisions himself, but also to lead others to make good decisions. Charles Moore, after four years of research at the United Parcel Service reached the following conclusions:

1. Good decisions take a lot of time.

2. Good decisions combine the efforts of a number of people.

3. Good decisions give individuals the freedom to dissent.

4. Good decisions are reached without any pressure from the top to reach an artificial consensus.

5. Good decisions are based on the participation of those responsible for implementing them.*

One Man

Wherever anything is to be done, either in the Church or in the world, you may depend upon it, it is done by one man. The whole history of the Church, from the earliest ages, teaches the same lesson. A Moses, a Gideon, an Isaiah, and a Paul are from time to time raised up to do an appointed work; and when they pass away, their work appears to cease. Nor is it given to everyone, as it was to Moses, to see the Joshua who is destined to carry on his work to completion.

God can raise up a successor to each man, but the man himself is not to worry about that matter, or he may do harm. One great object of every religious teacher should be to prevent the creation of external appliances to make his teaching appear to live when it is dead.

Charles Spurgeon, in Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 223

Position of Leadership

Don’t take a position of leadership in church unless you are prepared to be honest, pure, and loving in your lifestyle. Leadership is a privilege, and with privilege comes responsibility. God holds teachers of His truth doubly responsible because we who lead are in a position where we can either draw people toward Christ or drive them away from Him.

This is illustrated in the life of the famous author Mark Twain. Church leaders were largely to blame for his becoming hostile to the Bible and the Christian faith. As he grew up, he knew elders and deacons who owned slaves and abused them. He heard men using foul language and saw them practice dishonesty during the week after speaking piously in church on Sunday. He listened to ministers use the Bible to justify slavery. Although he saw genuine love for the Lord Jesus in some people, including his mother and his wife, he was so disturbed by the bad teaching and poor example of church leaders that he became bitter toward the things of God.

Indeed, it is a privilege to be an elder, a deacon, a Sunday school teacher, or a Bible club leader. But it is also an awesome responsibility. Let’s make sure we attract people to the Savior rather than turn them away.

Quotes

• Dwight Eisenhower described leadership as “The act of getting somebody else to do what you want done because he wants to      do it.”
• Give your decision, never your reasons; your decisions may be right, your reasons are sure to be wrong. – Lord Mansfield
• When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision. – Lucius, Second Lord Falkland
• Leadership is the ability to hide your panic from others. – Quoted in MSC Newsletter
• Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone’s following you. – Henry Gilmer
• Effective leadership is the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of predetermined objectives. – Ted Engstrom
• When a general gets too far ahead of his troops, he’s often mistaken for the enemy. – Anon
• Leadership is the discipline of deliberately exerting special influence within a group to move it towards goals of beneficial permanence that fulfills the group’s real needs. – Dr. John      Haggai, Lead On!
• Experts know what should be done; leaders know what should be done and how to get people to do it. – Quoted in C. Barber,      Nehemiah and the Dynamics of Leadership, p. 72.
• You can judge leaders by the size of the problems they tackle—people nearly always pick a problem their own size, and ignore      or leave to others the bigger or smaller ones. – Anthony Jay, in Bits and Pieces, Sept., 1989
• Effective leadership is the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of predetermined objectives. – Ted Engstrom, in Erwin Lutzer, Pastor to Pastor, p. 117.
• A leader who keeps his ear to the ground allows his rear end to become a target. – Angie Papadakis
• You cannot paint the “Mona Lisa” by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters. – William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Anon
• A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way. – John Maxwell
• A leader is a person with a magnet in his heart and a compass in his head. – Vance Havner
• Leadership in the local church should be determined by spirituality, not notoriety. – Tony Evans
• The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. – David Russell
• It is small wonder where the shepherds hesitate and stumble, that the sheep draw back affrighted. – Scott Nearing.
• The captain of a floundering ship does little good by criticizing the crew to the passengers.
• In order to give the illusion of authority, one must make immediate changes. – loose paraphrase of Douglas McArthur
• The trouble with being a leader today is that you can’t be sure whether people are following you or chasing you.
• One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.