"Bible-centered leadership begins with a commitment of the heart to seek after God by engaging his Word."
As I interacted with Top 10 Leadership Conversations in the Bible (Steve Moore's new book), what came through most strongly was not a series of pithy ideas about leadership but the challenge I quoted at the top of this post. Steve is challenging leaders to see God's Word as the primary source of wisdom to grow as a leader. That doesn't mean that we can't learn from Drucker, Godin and the like, but it does mean that the Bible is deeply relevant to a leader's journey of service. I have served as the CEO of a nonprofit and can attest to how difficult it can be to make the Bible a core influence on leadership. There are so many people out there telling you they have the answers. Everyone has a methodology, a coaching technique or a framework to try. So it is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of leadership literature and forget that the book by your night stand is actually the best resource of all.
Steve's extensive research uncovered more than 1000 leadership conversations in the Bible. The book is a distillation of those 1000 conversations into 10 key themes that he saw over and over. He weaves together the Biblical accounts with direct and simple wisdom for leaders. I saw Ezra, Paul, Samuel, Moses and others in a new light. Instead of ancient holy men, they became leaders struggling with the very challenges I face: change management, staff conflict, staying focused on vision, and countless others (Read through the top 30 quotes I tweeted from the book here).
One of the mistakes we as leaders commonly make is to compartmentalize our devotional time from our professional development efforts. We assume that God can help us love our neighbor but can't help us to tackle the Monday morning staff meeting. This book drives home the fact that God has deep wisdom to guide us as leaders, fathers/mothers, husbands/wives, community members and friends.
By focusing on themes such as prayer, worship, favor, change, failure, risk, humility, and others, Steve ties the real life leadership challenges portrayed in Scripture to 21st Century leadership realities. Fundamentally, God's perspective is the key to navigating our roles as leaders. This quote sums that up:
"We grow in leadership effectiveness the more we learn to interpret life from God's vantage point, which gives us a better perspective."My greatest take-away goes back to my introduction. I need to be diligently engaging with Scripture as part of my preparation as a leader and faithfulness in my role. I realize that too often my engagement with the Bible is far too removed from my task list for the day. God embedded leadership conversations in the Bible to help me to live out my role with a Kingdom perspective. I now must decide to listen to what He has to say. Will you listen to God's Word in this new way?
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