What are you accomplishing through your leadership role? Finishing a project, meeting a goal for the quarter, bettering your income and position, building a successful organization, hiring the right people? These are all activities that leaders engage in, but they’re not the objective of leadership. If your leadership can be quantified by a number, a date, an organizational charter, or a personal status, you’re wasting your greatest leadership opportunity. Most leaders, in fact, fail to understand and engage in the true objective of leadership.
The leadership model. A Christ-centered person will acknowledge that Jesus was a tremendous leader, in the sense of how we understand leadership. Yet His time on earth wasn’t focused on goals, position, income or status. He didn’t necessarily teach people how to make good decisions, or avoid conflict, or connect to the right people. He got angry, He shunned the religious leaders of the time, He engaged social outcasts, and He often taught the exact opposite of contemporary culture. What He did do was invest the bulk of His teaching ministry in about a dozen men. After Jesus’ resurrection, His followers had scattered. He didn’t leave an army of trained and passionate salespeople to go out and convert people to the Christian faith. What remained were twelve guys that He had poured His life into. Jesus’ model of leadership was to model leadership.
Nearly all of Jesus’ teaching was to His disciples. Jesus gave lessons in public, like the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), had debates, spoke out critically to leading figures, and had occasional conversations with strangers. But he also taught using cryptic proverbs. After teaching, Jesus would often go back privately and explain to His disciples exactly what a story meant. Jesus was called “teacher” 45 times in the New Testament. Remember, the accounts we have of Jesus’ life is through the writings of His disciples, who gave us the four Gospels. The accounts of Jesus we know are because His disciples wrote it all down.
Imagine the teaching Jesus gave to His disciples that we don’t read about in the Bible. They traveled and ministered together, day and night, for three years. Life in Jesus’ time was slow, and there was plenty of time for relationship-building. We don’t know of all the meals they had together, the conversations as the walked from town to town, or what Jesus said when they fished, and started campfires, and woke up in the mornings. But we know these instances certainly existed, and the disciples saw how Jesus behaved in the little moments and heard what He said to them privately and personally. Through the New Testament, we get a glimpse of Jesus’ life with His disciples.
Jesus’ people objective. Christ came to do the will of the Father, and that meant dying on the cross and then rising again to conquer both sin and death. That’s the big “P” Purpose of Jesus. With His disciples, the objective was more than just having men around Him to be able to tell the story. Lightning bolts from heaven could have come down and inscribed Jesus’ teachings in stone tablets—after all, God had done that before. Why three years pouring into a dozen men? Jesus came to save and redeem people, His church would be made up entirely of people, so it makes sense that His time would be spent teaching people how to be like Himself.
Jesus obviously had a purpose for His disciples that went beyond being witnesses. At the close of His ministry on earth, He charged them with a mission—go make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). A few weeks later, God empowered them with the Holy Spirit. The ongoing work of Christ on earth would be accomplished through and beginning with these men. Paul writes that Jesus disciples “put on Christ” (Galatians 3:24-27). This illustration of followers of Jesus acting and teaching like Jesus so that they look like they are wearing His clothes is a picture of the mentoring and modeling leadership Jesus applied to individuals.
Modeling and replication. Jesus’ leadership practice was to model how He wanted His disciples to treat others, to minister to them, and to share their faith. Throughout the New Testament we are taught to look at Christ as our model, and learn to think and behave as He did. Consider:
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 1 John 2:6
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. 1 Corinthians 11:1
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. Philippians 3:17
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1-2
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus… Philippians 2:5
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 1 Peter 2:21
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Romans 8:29
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit… 1 Thessalonians 1:6
The greatest leadership tool Jesus gave us was not a list of character traits, or a strategy on how to make decisions, or a lesson in people management. No, Jesus’ greatest leadership legacy is His own life, given as an example for us to emulate. As we become more like Christ in every facet of life and work, we become more personally and spiritually effective in our marriages, homes, businesses and communities.
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Jesus and His disciples traveled and ministered together, day and night, for three years. We don’t know of all the meals they had together, the conversations as the walked from town to town, or what Jesus said when they fished, and started campfires, and woke up in the mornings.