There is a lot of power that comes with a leadership role. I guess I should not use the word power, maybe I should go with responsibility. You are probably sitting there reading thinking something along the lines of “well, duh.”
I want to address a very specific responsibility of a leader that I have been getting told to write about: the teaching responsibility. Let us just be honest. There is going to be a time where you are unable to continue to lead at the capacity that you are. Great leaders within the church know this fact. Andy Stanley talks about it all of the time, Craig Groschel talks about it all of the time, Francis Chan discusses it. John Maxwell discusses it. There is going to come a time where you, a leader, are not going to be able to lead in the capacity that you do anymore. There will come a time where all leaders will be asked, and more importantly required to pass on the torch within their organizations.
My question, as a young leader, is who would you pass it on to? Do you go out and search for someone? I think if you are an unprepared leader, you will have to go looking outside of your organization as to who you will bring into your organization to lead it. If you are a prepared leader, you should not have to look further than the person you have been preparing for that moment. The burden of a leader should be to answer the question, “Who will lead this when I am gone?”
Alas, we get to the point of this blog. There is power in apprenticing, and the responsibility of the leader is to teach the apprentice. You want to “lead” yourself out of the job. You want to be so effective as a teacher and leader that you lead the man or woman you have been right into your position. There are a couple of fears that could come with this. 1. What am I going to do if I teach myself out of the job? 2. What if I find someone who does the job better?
My reactions to those concerns. 1. If you work yourself out of the job, that is only going to open the door for other jobs because you are that effective as a leader. The more effective your leadership, the more people will want you to lead. 2. If we are lucky, we should find someone who does the job better than we did it.
So many people let pride become the center of their leadership. What about me? What will I get out of this? A great leader is willing to risk the chance at drowning themselves out in the noise that the leader they have taught is creating. A great leader will risk their legacy, to help improve the legacy of the next generation leader. The beautiful part about leadership is the better you lead (accomplishing your goals through other people), the greater your legacy has the potential to become.
Who is it that talks about great leaders? Great leaders are talked about by the people who would have followed them to the end.
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Food for thought: If a leader with no followers is just a man or woman taking a walk… do not be the only one walking around.
Who is it that talks about great leaders? Are you a leader that is worthy of being talked about by those who learned from you?
leadershape 