It's About People

Like most walks of life, as a pastor, I get bombarded with all things leadership. I read books on it, go to seminars about it, and take classes that promise to help me become a better leader. Leadership is a key element of most enterprises.

One of the definitions of a leader I've heard over the years is the pithy little statement that a leader is someone who has followers. In other words, you're not really a leader unless you have someone following. Thank you Mr. Obvious. And yet it seems that we easily forget this little tidbit of wisdom.

Leaders often lose track of the idea of leading people and quickly begin to focus on leading an institution. In a church setting the leader begins to develop a vision of where the church needs to go, or what it needs to become, and then begins to implement a plan to get them there. That all sounds well and good but those plans often involve schedules, styles, architecture, technology, marketing, branding, and a whole host of other changes that involve the institution. What is often left out is leading people. A leader who makes a lot of institutional changes and forces people to accept those changes isn't leading, he's dictating. he may be right about those things needing to be done but if he isn't leading the people that direction he isn't leading.

Now some might say they got the church leadership's approval. But that is only leading a few people who may or may not be able to challenge the leaders assumptions. In any case, the people haven't been lead as is evidenced by the fact that they aren't following.

Leaders need to lead people so there is a lot of truth to that old saying about having followers. It may take a lot longer to get where you need to go but that is what true leadership is really all about.