Leadership Rooted in Humility
The most important quality in leadership is humility. If that was the only information someone left with, I feel they would be a better at leading than over 80% of the people who consider themselves leaders. Humility is important because it usually is the root to solid judgment or wise decisions. But what can be said about humility that hasn’t already been said about leg day at the gym? We know it’s a necessity but it’s not the easiest quality to stand on especially when you need to be humble or humbled in public.
Humble Like Christ
We should know that if we want to have the perfect view of humility and leadership, we simply should look at who the Bible was written about, Jesus Christ. Jesus was the perfect example of becoming flesh and walking amongst men in humility. Now the question is: why was Jesus walking amongst men a humbling experience? Well, the fact that he was fully God and became equally fully man and was willing to have the pain, temptations, and hurts that we as men have. Also, we can’t forget the fact that he was willing to sacrifice his life for our sins and he committed not one. Jesus humbled himself so that man had a chance to be free.
Humility Over Talent
If we’re being practical about this, a good leader should be smart enough to know that there are others that they may work with that may be better at certain things then that that leader. For example, we know LeBron James is the leader of the Los Angeles Lakers. LeBron may end up going down as one of the top two players to ever play in the NBA. When you’re that talented most times it can go without saying who the leader of a team is. Recently, this summer, the Lakers traded for Anthony Davis who is many years LeBron’s junior. In the media you would regularly hear them portray LeBron and Anthony Davis as Batman and Robin (obviously with LeBron being Batman).
LeBron being a wise leader humbled himself and publicly let it be known that the scoring of the team would be coming through Anthony Davis. Although we all know who the leader is, the fact that LeBron made this gesture in front of everyone, humbling himself to the newer star of the Lakers team, showed that humility is now part of their DNA. In the future, when we look back on this season, if the Lakers were to win a championship we would likely reflect back to the moment when LeBron humbled himself for the good of the team. This can easily translate to leadership and worship. It’s not about leading every song or playing every solo part. Most times it’s about falling back and allowing others to flourish. I feel like most times that flourishing will show through your team and make your team stronger.
Good Leadership or Bad Leadership or…..
Sometimes it’s good to sit back and ask yourself who are you trying to be? So, it’s important if you’re saying you’re trying to be a leader you should understand what it means to be a leader. So, what is leader? I think when we look at the title of leader it’s all subjective. For example, if you have a classroom of 30 students one of the students rallies 13 students to get their homework done before it’s due date, commit to studying 1-hour day, and making sure that they’re not late to class anyone would say that’s a good leader. But if that same student convinces those same 13 students to never do their homework, always come late, and be a nuisance in class and reflection you realize that kid was still a good leader.
To me, it’s not the fact that someone follows you that makes you a good leader but it’s the virtues that guide your leadership that makes a person a good leader. If humility is a leader’s main virtue, that will complement the other qualities that they will bring to help them lead a group of people to victory.
