Your Leadership Mandate

You are mandated to lead!

Your leadership enables each person to reclaim the characteristics of God given to him as bearer of God’s image. Leadership must help others fulfill their mandate to reflect and represent the image of God. Leadership must help every person do that which God put them on earth to do: fill the earth with His glory.

This is leadership in its ultimate, created, eternal, and fullest sense. Show me a person who is actively reclaiming and cultivating their created attributes (i.e. active and purposeful, rational, creative, exercise dominion, moral, relational, free and responsible, loving, merciful, faithful, interdependent, and generous), and I will show you a true leader.

Leaders are not born!

Leaders are not made!

Leaders are created!

You have been created with the full capacity for this one essential purpose of the human enterprise – to restore within yourself and within each other the long-forgotten image of God so that we can fill the earth with the glory of God. You were created for this purpose. This is your leadership mandate.

You were created to lead!

You have the created capacity for leadership!

This is the truth about leadership!

This is the Genesis Principle of Leadership!

Now go out and lead!

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Organizations collapse for the lack of leaders.

Every organization needs all the good managers it can find. However, finding and developing managers (that is - people who know how to do things right) is not all that difficult.

Organizations do not collapse because there are not enough good managers. Organizations collapse because there are not enough leaders. Evidence? Look at the big three automakers. Need I say more?

In spite of the glut of leadership literature and seminars, organizations continue to collapse because there are simply not enough people who lead. Most professional development seminars and books are ineffective because they continue to miss the mark regarding this essential purpose of leadership.

The key to developing effective leaders is helping people restore the long-forgotten image of God within them. Leaders are to help others reclaim and steward the created attributes of God within those they lead. Leaders must become more conscious of men and women as being made in the image of God. Therefore they possess the God-created, God-given attributes. Leaders must see that people are not driven by the evolutionary forces of genetics or the developmental press of the environment. People are not in the process of perceiving, behaving, or becoming a fully functioning self, nor are they in a lifelong pursuit of self-actualization.

Rather, leadership and the development of leaders must be specifically directed at enabling each person to reclaim (structurally) the long-forgotten attributes of God and to cultivate (functionally) each created leadership attribute.

Now go out and develop leaders … in His image.

LEADERSHIP HAS A PURPOSE

Leadership has a purpose. I don’t hear much about this today. Do you?

The redemption of all men and women and boys and girls is for one central purpose: to fill the earth again with the glory of God through the restored attributes of God within each and every person. The central purpose of the church, the family, education, and, particularly leadership is to take mankind back to its first and original condition – the “good creation.”

Convinced of the importance of this task, pastors must focus their preaching, teaching, and shepherding toward enabling every member of their congregations to reclaim and cultivate the long-lost attributes of God.

Parents must reorder their priorities toward the cultivation of the created attributes in their children.

Teachers must recapture a high, traditional, biblical view of their students and radically alter their pedagogical approaches to training and developing children.

Employers must change their low, mechanistic views of the worker enabling their employees to recapture a high and holy view of work and personhood.

As this occurs, everyone will delight in God’s image and become His garden of delight – people will delight in God – God will delight in His image bearers – and the earth will be filled with God’s glory. It will fulfill Comenius’ dream who prayed:

Do thou, everlasting wisdom, who dost play in this world and whose delight is in the sons of men, ensure that we in turn may now find delight in thee. Discover more fully unto us ways and means to better understanding of thy play and to more eager pursuance of it with one another until we ourselves finally play in thy company more effectively to give increasing pleasure unto thee, who art our everlasting delight! Amen!

More later ….

Now go out and lead – in His image.

Finding Your Leadership Voice

Pastor John was deeply concerned about the illiteracy of the children in his parish. His church served a rural, agricultural area. Life in this farming country was demanding. The days were long. Everyone worked hard from sunup to sundown. Work on the family farms required the help of everyone – particularly the children. As soon as they were able to walk, the children worked alongside their parents. Children were essential to the success of the family farm. Consequently, there was no time for learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Going to school was a luxury only the noble and wealthy people in the surrounding villages could enjoy.

Nevertheless, Pastor John convinced the parishioners in his church to allow their children to stay for a few hours following the Sunday worship service so that he could teach them reading, writing, arithmetic, and Latin. Pastor John called this innovative program, “Sunday School.” As far as I can discern, this may be the first record of “Sunday School” in church history. Curiously, though, his “Sunday School” was for the purpose of providing a well-rounded education to the boys and girls in the parish.

Known today as the “Father of Pedagogy,” Pastor John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) pioneered several modern educational methodologies at his “Sunday School” in Moravia (now known as the Czech Republic). He was the first to use pictures in his textbooks; the first to include women in his school; and, the first to believe that learning was a cradle-to-the-grave process. He wrote over 150 books (some of his Latin textbooks are still in use today); documented the distinctive learning styles of children of varying ages; and, formulated an educational model based upon the developmental growth of children (which he named “pedagogy” – the art and science of teaching children). There is evidence that he turned down an offer to become the first president of Harvard University.

John Amos Comenius was also the first to believe that learning, spiritual growth, and mental/emotional development was intricately woven together. He held a classical, traditional, biblical view of the person believing that the essential purpose of education was to enable every child to be fully conformed to the image of God. “The restoration within us of the long-forgotten image of God” was the driving vision for his “Sunday School.” Comenius believed that the essential purpose of the human enterprise – in every sphere of life – was rooted in man’s call to fill the earth with the glory of God through the restored created attributes of God. Once restored, we would be able to fully participate in God’s divine redemptive purpose, which ultimately leads to the restoration and liberation of the entire fallen creation.

Comenius was convinced that authentic human living begins with the imitation of God. He approached all of life guided by a biblical view of personhood. Life was to be a “garden of delight” where we, as “gardeners,” are to “water God’s plants,” enabling each person to “find his voice.” In this way, each and every person becomes “a garden of delight for his God.” Toward this end, Comenius emphasized bringing faith and reason together into what he called “harmonic interrelation.” By this, he meant that faith and reason are to compliment each other in such a way as to teach all things to all men from all points of view. Such an approach ultimately promotes the rediscovery and restoration of the long-lost attributes (image) of God.

Think about it: This is the foundational organizing principle of leadership.

Comenius had it right!

More later …

[i] Comenius, John Amos Comenius, The Great Didactic, vol. xvi: 2.

The "Krypton" of Leadership

As a leader you possess the created capacity and responsibility to be generous as God is generous, dispensing the sacrificial generosity of God to those around you by being supremely and wastefully generous with your time, talent, and treasure.

Supreme generosity is at the very core of your nature! Generous is an attribute that God gave to you. You were created to be gloriously – even wastefully – generous. It is part of your created nature and divine responsibility, as a bearer of God’s image, to be supremely generous with your time, talent, and treasure.

Yes, the story of the greedy king who learned to excel in the grace of giving is a wonderful example. But what better example can be found than in the supreme, inexpressible generosity of God, the King of Kings? Supreme generosity is at the very core of God’s nature.

God the Father generously created and sustains the universe.

God the Son generously gave His life that you might live an eternally abundant life.

God the Holy Spirit generously equips you with divinely originated abilities that enable you to play a unique and strategic role in transforming every corner of culture for God and for good.

Supreme generosity is as the very core of your nature! Excelling in the grace giving is not an abstract, dusty, theological notion. God is exuberantly, cheerfully, and lavishly generous. God’s acts of generosity are transformative. God’s generosity is real. God’s generosity changes things. God loves to give.

In his masterful collection of daily devotional poems, The Diary of an Old Soul, the Victorian poet, novelist, and Christian fantasy writer, George MacDonald (1824 – 1905), described God’s generosity as “gloriously wasteful.” In his poem for March 2, MacDonald wrote, “Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art Thou.” [i]

God created you to be gloriously and wastefully generous. The generosity of your time, talent, and treasure also changes things. In fact, in the final analysis, it may be the only thing that ever changes things. And like the greedy king, you too will learn that you are the true benefactor of your own generosity. Like the greedy king, you, too, will experience great joy and fulfillment as you learn to excel in the grace of giving.

Furthermore, God takes great joy and delight in watching His people cheerfully and lavishly – even wastefully – bestow gifts of their time, talent, and treasure in changing people and the world about them. God gives cheerfully and loves those who cheerfully give. When you are generous, you fill the earth with the glory of God.

Generosity is the “krypton” of leadership. The element krypton, appearing on the periodic chart of elements is, basically, an inert chemical. But, when used in fluorescent bulbs, krypton makes the light whiter and brighter. When used in laser lights, krypton makes them more powerful and precise. Like the element krypton, rich generosity lights up leadership – leadership that separates and distinguishes great leaders from good leaders. Great leaders excel in the transformative, wasteful generosity of their time, talent, and treasure.

You are generous.

You are a leader.

This is the truth about leadership.

This is the Genesis Principle of Leadership.

Now go out and brighten the world with your generosity!

[i] MacDonald, George, The Diary of an Old Man: 366 Writings for Devotional Reflection, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, Minneapolis, 1994.

LEADERS ARE GLORIOUSLY AND WASTEFULLY GENEROUS

What makes you deeply joyful - giving or taking?

As a leader you possess the created capacity and responsibility to be generous as God is generous, dispensing the sacrificial generosity of God to those around you by being supremely and wastefully generous with your time, talent, and treasure.

And how is it that this person has never given me one of her quilts?

In their beautiful, award-winning, picture book, The Quiltmaker’s Gift, [i] Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken tell the enchanting story of a very powerful and greedy king who, with the help of a little old quiltmaker, learned how to excel in the grace of giving.

In fact, this king was good, very good, at being greedy. Every Christmas and every birthday (which he celebrated twice each year) the king demanded that his subjects lavish astonishingly beautiful and magical gifts upon him.

Oh how the king loved his possessions!

He kept an accurate and detailed inventory of each one. From top to bottom, every nook and cranny of his castle was filled with the magnificent gifts he had received.

But the king was not happy.

He never smiled.

He was never satisfied.

He kept looking for that one perfect gift that would finally make him happy.

One day the king learned about a quiltmaker who lived in her little cottage in the mountains – high above the clouds. Throughout the world, people said that this quiltmaker made the brightest and prettiest quilts that anyone had ever seen.

Curiously, though, she never sold her quilts. People came from all over the world with pockets full of money to buy her magnificent quilts. Yet, no matter how hard they tried. She would not sell even one. No amount of gold or silver could change her mind. Instead, she always took her quilts to the town and gave them to the downtrodden and homeless. Then she would start another, and then another, only to give each one away.

The king demanded one of these magnificent quilts.

And how is it that this person has never given me one of her quilts? he bellowed.

But the quiltmaker refused. Several times the king threatened her. But again and again the quiltmaker refused. On one occasion the king threw the quiltmaker into the cave of a hungry bear. On another occasion the king placed her on a tiny, deserted island. Still, the quiltmaker refused to give the king one of her extraordinary quilts.

Eventually, in desperation, the king shouted, I give up! What must I do for you to give me a quilt?

In response, the quiltmaker finally promised to make the king a quilt, on one condition. He had to give away everything he owned to the poor. The king was stunned. Give away everything? Every one of his treasured gifts? What an absurd idea! The king dearly loved each and every one of his gifts. How could he possibly give them away? How could he even give one?

But finally, he gave in. He began ever so slowly at first. Starting with his smaller treasures, the king gave them away one by one. To his astonishment, he began to experience pleasure – not in receiving gifts – but in giving them away. Little by little he began to smile – and even laugh as he emptied his castle.

Soon his happiness turned into a deep, satisfying joy.

Even so, he could not understand how it was possible that he could experience such happiness by giving away his treasured possessions. But soon, the king was giving away his gifts by the wagonload.

He excelled in the grace of giving, becoming overwhelmed with inexpressible joy.

It took years for the king to give away everything. He went everywhere. He gave everyone he saw a gift. Soon there was not a person in his kingdom who had not received a gift from him. What joy filled his soul as he traded his treasures for smiles!

Finally, tired, tattered, and torn, the weary king returned home – poor – with holes in the toes of his boots. He had traveled all over the world giving away his treasures. Nevertheless, his eyes glittered with joy and his laugh had grown wonderful and thunderous. At last, he was happy.

Though poor, he felt like he was the richest person in the world.

The king kept his promise to the quiltmaker. He gave every one of his beautiful gifts away. And the quiltmaker kept her promise to the king and gave him one of the most beautiful quilts she had ever made. You see, the quiltmaker also kept her promise to herself – giving her quilts only to the poor. She stayed true to her calling; she excelled in the grace of giving.

Curiously, the king returned to the town only to give away his beautiful quilt to one he found shivering in the cold of night. The quiltmaker continued to make her magnificent quilts. From time to time the king would go to the quiltmaker’s little cottage high above the clouds and at night, take them down to the town, and give them to the poor and downtrodden.

As this wonderful parable ends, it is said that the king was ...never happier than when he was giving something away.

So - I ask you again - what makes you deeply and satisfyingly joyful? Giving? Taking?

You see, glorious and wasteful generosity is a mark of the effective leader!

You are generous.

You are a leader.

This is the truth about leadership.

This is the Genesis Principle of Leadership.

[i] Brumbeau, Jeff and De Marcken, Gail, The Quiltmaker’s Gift, Scholastic Press, 2001.

PART IV: A HIGHER LEVEL OF LEADERSHIP

Contrary to popular belief, effective leaders are not hard-nosed, cigar-chomping, commandeering, uncaring, individualistic, take-charge, lone wolves.

Rather – effective leaders are interdependent.

As a leader you are totally and dynamically reliant upon God and your fellow human beings for your well-being and continued existence. Nonetheless, you remain irreducibly distinctive, independent, and irreplaceable with even greater individual capacity, influence, and significance, finding the center of your existence and significance in God and others.

Occasionally, there have been leadership models that recognize that people are something more than programmable machines – that acknowledge that people, in fact, can think, reason, and are capable of judging for themselves – that it is not necessary for them to check their thoughts, ideas, and feeling at the door when they arrive for work – and that they don’t have to leave at the end of the day feeling like they have been treated like a number, or worse yet, a machine.

James Clawson's book, Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface,[i] is an encouraging step forward. Clawson argues that effective leadership must recognize that people are much more than programmable machines. People have an intricately developed, personal set of values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations (VABEs). Workers do not check their VABEs at the door when they arrive at the workplace. People, just like you and me, use their world and life views – their conceptual frameworks – to observe, describe, interpret, and make decisions about the world around them – and then act accordingly. Clawson argues that there must be a moral foundation to leadership that consists of four cornerstones: truth-telling, promise-keeping, fairness, and respect for each individual.

What a remarkable leap from the mechanical and dehumanizing approaches to leadership still prevalent in the 21st century!

But there's more. In the words popularized by the cooking icon, Emeril Lagasse, “Let’s kick it up a notch!” Let’s take Clawson’s “Level Three” notion to a "Level Four."

According to Clawson, "respect for the individual means believing that all individuals have some intrinsic worth and should be treated accordingly with courtesy and kindness.” Clawson illustrates this with the common Buddhist greeting, “Namaste,” interpreted as, “I respect the part of God that is within you.”

Clawson had it right – ALMOST. People do have something “divine” within. Effective leaders show respect for that “divinity.” But I suggest that the traditional Christian view of “imago Dei” kicks the Buddhist notion of namaste "up a notch – to a higher biblical view of leadership – The Genesis Principle of Leadership.

You were carefully and purposefully created in God’s image.You possess most of God’s attributes.You are responsible to be a bearer of these attributes in every arena of your life.And you have been given the Genesis Charge to lead.

Though distorted by sin, every one of your co-workers and subordinates possesses, in equal portion and capacity, the created attributes of God. It is your moral responsibility, as a leader, to recognize, cultivate, and help each other steward these created leadership attributes.

This is interdependence at its best - the beginning of effective leadership.

You are interdependent.

You are a leader.

This is the truth about leadership.

This is the Genesis Principle of Leadership.

Now go out and lead!

[i] Clawson, James, Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface, Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006, 2003, 1999.