Written by: Raphael Samuel on November 9, 2013

The discussion about leadership is inescapable. We are confronted with questions and  encounters around leadership on a daily bases. Questions arise from various fields including, government, business, family, and church. We often find ourselves debating whether someone is an effective leader or not. The fact that we are so engage with the issue of leadership, shows how universal leadership as a practice has become to our daily lives and endeavors. This begs the question of, what is the true value of leadership to any organization’s performance and success?

To some, leadership is everything. Organizations fail or success base on the quality of their leadership. Natin Nohria and Rakesk Khurana, provide us with the opportunity to examine leadership as a discipline and practice within high levels of the business environment. The text makes the observation that the demand for insight about leadership has been increasing. However, this increase is being met by a lack of mentoring or transfer of leadership knowledge from recognizable great leaders. Leadership students must rely on popular writers to provide the needed insight. This in a world where the CEOs of leading companies are the ones most often held out as models of effective or poor leadership. Most CEOs never make any contribution to the advancement of leadership beyond their business involvement. Noting the competitive nature of business one would think that the business world would  do all in its power to get the best models of successful leaders into institutions that preparing future leaders.

Like the business world, the church has experienced an even more noticeable lack of leadership mentoring. The bible provides some great examples of what leadership mentoring looks like: Moses and the young man Joshua. He remain at Moses side during some of Mose‘s deepest encounters with God and later replaced him and Isreal’s new  leader. Elijah and Elisha, the one who requested a double portion of his master’s anointing. Finally, Paul and Timothy, the molding of a young timid disciple into a great leader. Where are the great Christian leaders of today who are pouring their lives into the next generation of Christian leaders? One church I know of, the pastor is both nationally and internationally recognized. Another preacher whom God led to sit under this ministry for a season. After being there for some time, requested an appointment to meet with the pastor and was told that the pastor does not meet with other preachers one on one. It was further explained that, the pastor does not mentor one on one, he mentors when he preaches to the whole church. This does not seem to fit the biblical examples cited. Successful Christian leaders have the same responsibility as the apostle Paul to mentor others who will in turn pass on what they have learnt to others. To this I salute Men like jack Hayford who has become a spiritual father to so many younger leaders

The question is, how do we evaluate effective leaderships? Our text focuses a lot on leadership at the CEO level. High-impact CEOs are said to command greater value to their organization and should be more highly compensated. This model of leadership focuses on what defines success to organization; results. As such five dimension of leadership are outlined:

• Integrity
• Chrismatic-inspirational
• Performance Oriented
• Chrismatic-Visionary
• Team Oriented (team integrator). P.371.

Most of these are transferable to any leadership environment, including ministry. The contributor to this book are concern with leadership within high demand organizational context. However, it is clear from scripture that leadership in the Kingdom is of a different nature.  We lead by relying on the Holy Spirit not on our charisma. Success is measured by service to others not power, personal gains, or results. For if Jesus was to be measured by these, he would be a failure. He served others and instructed his disciples to pursue true greatness, which is to serve others. Jack Welch coined the phrase “servant leader”, but Jesus lived it. Our challenge is to balance the great ideas put forth in this book with what the bible teaches about leadership. In this way we can apply universal principles to applicable situations.

About the Author

Raphael Samuel