Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within is a book on leadership by Robert Quinn. At the time of the book’s writing, Quinn was on the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Michigan. Quinn writes, “To survive, people need leaders who take risks and are willing to die for their people. And those people would kill them for caring.” He confirms that leadership is filled with risk. If we want to be leaders of people, leaders that help grow and transform lives, we have to have certain elements to be effective.
Leaders have a vision. If you are a leader with a vision, your behavior reflects a transformational paradigm. Quinn calls this transformational leadership. Leaders are self-authorizing. They give themselves permission to lead and to share their vision. They are working to see that vision lived out and to transform their business, their people, industry, marketplace, strategy, and so on. They often follow unconventional methods that are based on moral principles rather than the pressure from a group.
The source of this paradigm? Quinn writes, “What is needed is a new birth.” He’s not thinking of the new birth that’s talked about in the Gospels, which is a new birth from heaven. When Jesus says, “You must be born again,” He means from above. You have to get a new life from the Lord, Himself. The author doesn’t ascribe spiritual value to this “new birth”, but the reality is that is exactly what is needed.
That’s how you become a member of the Body of Christ, God’s people. We gather together to learn how to lead God’s people. The New Testament book of Titus tells us how to lead, from the Gospel’s perspective, and to see this transformation take place as leadership vision is carried out through the organizations and people we lead. Transformational leadership according to the Bible is also unconventional.
Christ came first for the Jewish people. The Apostle Paul writes about this in the book of Romans. From the Jewish people we received the Old Testament. They also gave us the concept of male spiritual leadership. They gave us the concept of learning and study. The highest form of worship was for a
Jewish man in Jesus’ time growing up was study. Jesus says to the woman at the well in John 4, “Salvation is from the Jews.” And sacrifice—One who would die for all. This all comes out of Judaism. Then, as Christianity moved west out of Jerusalem, and it moved west through Greece, Athens, and through Europe, the foundational mode of Jewish assembly was a synagogue. The synagogue was formed by heads of households, who gathered together around a table. And they would sit and they would talk, they read the Scriptures, they studied, and would discuss it together.
The original structure of Christianity, born out of the synagogue, was believers gathering together, talking, discussing, living out their faith in a very natural, organic way. Transformation happened among these men as they gathered around the Synagogue table, and lived among one another.
The model of spiritual leadership, as it moved through Europe over 2,000 years ago, and migrated to North America about 400 years ago, has been watered down somewhat from the original form. So, too, has the idea of life transformation and transformational leadership.
From the Greeks, we get the model of leadership of the smart guys, the Sophists. This led us to the age of the professional speaker—tickling the ears with right sounding answers. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was intended to be integrated into all of life. But now, it’s including an abstract, philosophical-thought model. Discussion instead becomes a lecture. This is one of the reasons I so enjoy our Friday Morning Men’s Fellowship—because it is built around that original model of discussion at the table.
Next came the influence of the Romans. In their prime they were bureaucratic geniuses. Constantine, the Roman Emperor, almost killed the faith in the fourth century when he made it the state religion. He miscast the faith. It moved from organic to managerial. Christianity under the Romans gained a bureaucracy. And we still see that today. The Christian faith is a totally different paradigm. It is transformational. It’s not managerial. Everything needs organization, but the bureaucracy we gained from the Romans.
To find fundamental transformation, we must go back to the original model, the men around the table. Leaders of the faith with a vision for their people, in Christ, being transformed. In Titus, Paul speaks of these men, the elders. What do they look like? What is required of the transformational leaders?
Paul writes to Titus, “An elder must be blameless” (Titus 1:6). Elders are not just older, although that helps. Presbyteros, the word used in Titus for elder, means older. But they’re also wiser, because they have experienced more of life. And they also have the right idea about life. Paul goes on to explain that leaders are “not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain” (Titus 1:7). Where is this model of life found? In the Bible, which is a book about life. It’s not about religion. “I came, that they might have life, and have it to the full,” Jesus said (John 10:10). It’s about life.
So elders, leaders, begin with two things. First, the right thought pattern. They have a transformational paradigm: study the Bible, the Scriptures; then live it out. And, second, that living out, that lifestyle, is exemplary. They’re upstanding, sober-minded, blameless. They have the stamp of Jesus Christ on their lives. That doesn’t mean they’re without fault. All are sinners. But relative to everyone else, in the sight of their peers, their families, the community, they live above reproach. They are examples for us to follow.
And what is the organization that God is primarily interested in through which transformational leadership is born and begins to take shape? What is the building block of society? Look back at Titus and we see that it is the family. Paul says he is “faithful to his wife” (Titus 1:6). Some translations say, “the husband of one wife.” Men, he dies to himself for her.
Some marriage stories scare me. They remind me of my own marriage 45 years ago when I was constantly seeking my own way and control. Now my advice to men in marriage is that you need to learn how to be a good loser. Men will respond, “I’ve got my rights.” But the reality is you don’t have rights.
When my sons Colin and Christopher were younger, I would sometimes say at dinner, “I’m the head of this household,” and they’d laugh at me, including my wife, Suzanne. Why? Because you must earn the right to be the head of this household. I had the position, but it wasn’t working. You’ve got to learn to die to yourself for her. You men that are hanging on to control, let it go. Don’t attempt to control your family. Lead it, as you yourself are being transformed by Christ into the image of Christ.
The family is a microorganism. It’s a model for what Jesus wants to do to the whole body of Christ. That’s what each marriage and family is; it’s a little organism, you and your wife and your children. You are growing a picture of heaven on earth. The primary evangelistic mechanism for the Lord is the family. We think evangelism is a big meeting in a stadium—because we got that from the Greeks. Or it’s a bunch of programs and institutions like the Romans. No, Christianity and sharing our faith is organic, small relationships with one another, beginning with the family.
And men, with respect to your wife—there’s never even a hint of sexual immorality, which is sex outside of marriage. There’s only one place for sex and it’s in marriage. That’s an adamant command throughout the whole Bible. “He is the husband of one wife.”
Paul continues at the end of verse six, “a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.” Does this mean that the family doesn’t have problems? No! But they are functional. They are transformational. The leader takes action. He works through the challenges in his family.
And what are the tools he uses? Quinn lists a few of the tools of the transformational leader, and I think they’re decidedly Biblical concepts:
First, behavioral integrity. If you say one thing, and do the other, you’re out of business. Don’t tell your children to be good, yet you’re not. You don’t drop them off at Sunday school class and hope for the best. You better be modeling a blameless life. Quinn calls this behavioral integrity. As you are being transformed by God in your own life, your behavior will more and more become a model in your family and marriage and workplace.
Next, complex confrontation. There are no easy answers. Parents in our communities are finding out high SAT scores and expensive schools are helpful, but not enough. There must be a faith foundation. Working that out with your kids is hard. When we were young we told our children, “You don’t have to pursue Jesus.” That was a mistake. We were in our mid-30s before we listened to the Lord, and we caused a lot of damage. This idea of having perfect kids—it won’t happen. Learn to live in a way that models faith to your children, and have constant and complex conversations. Don’t just “let faith take it’s own course” in their lives. You must love them enough to guide them and confront them.
Finally, behavior that is unconventional. We don’t blend in well; we’re different. We are in the world, but not of it. This does not mean that we are “Jesus freaks”. But our lifestyle, as Titus instructs, is specific and on purpose. What is the biggest thing that makes us different? We’re forgivers. We forgive. Forgiveness today is unconventional. Think about what aspects of your life have been transformed by Jesus as you have matured in faith. We often talk about the way we live being a witness—people see Jesus in us. But do they really? Only if we are acting in a unique, Christ-like way that is unlike the world. Loving, forgiving, selfless, even-minded. These are unconventional actions in today’s world.
These three tools are the foundations of and practices of transformational leaders. Quinn writes of these men, “Their behavior is nearly incomprehensible.” Why are transformational leaders so hard to figure out? Because we have one Lord, with a specific kind of life to live.
I remember when the Lord saved me, I was 36 years old. I was climbing, but I had my ladder against the wrong wall. I didn’t realize it until the Lord saved me. I was trying to be a big shot in corporate America, and God just changed me. I said, “I got a new deal, here. I got a new boss for life.” We report to the Son of the living God. And we lead the people of God to transform lives. Is there any greater mission than that? That is the vision of the transformational leader.
Transform lives, marriages, homes, families, communities, and transform businesses. The challenge today is that you aspire to be the man, the leader, the elder, that God intends for you to be. Paul says everybody should aspire to it. And if you aspire to it, you desire a noble task, he says. Why is it so noble? Nothing happens without leadership. Your role as a transformational leader, first in your marriage and family, and spreading out from there, is literally world-impacting. World-changing. Don’t be satisfied with being successful when your life can be transformational.
Commit today to follow Jesus Christ and let him transform your life. Then be a leader, a life-transformer through your life. He’s the only one that can do it. You know, Robert Quinn’s book on leadership, it’s fantastic. But if you try to do leadership on your own, you won’t get there. Apart from Christ, real transformational leadership won’t happen.
Prayer: Jesus, the Bible tells us if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold old things pass away, behold all things have become new. Transform us, Lord. Help us to lead transformed lives by your grace in the power of your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
About the author: Chris White has over 50 years of experience in leadership, from his service in the U.S. Navy, to IBM, and then to Executive Ministries and Leadership Companies. He is the Founder of Leadership Companies, whose mission since 1986 is developing leaders in the business and professional community. His passion is helping men find their unique calling in life.
