Leadership is an act of submission to God. To be a leader means listening to all kinds of people and situations. Out of that listening, we are hoping to discern the mind of God as best we can. This is the price of leadership - it's an act of sacrifice. So leadership is part and parcel of the work of submission to God.
Interpretation
Leadership involves humility and the willingness to serve while seeking guidance from a higher purpose.
This quote emphasizes that true leadership is not about power or control but about humility, sacrifice, and the ability to listen to others. It suggests that effective leaders must submit to a greater purpose, often seeking divine guidance, and this process requires a readiness to serve the needs of others before their own interests.
In practice
This quote can be used in a workshop on leadership principles.
Pride is one of the socially acceptable sins in some corners of the evangelical culture. It's just straight-out ego gratification - how important I am; whether my name gets on the building or on the TV program or in the magazine article.
Supremely, spiritual directors/mentors/pastors are persons who have a sense of being 'established' in God. Otherwise they are too dangerous to be allowed into the soul space of others.
There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves.
Most leadership strategies are doomed to failure from the outset.
All power is lodged in, and consequently derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate, and buckle it on as our armour.
I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their rights, in the Union, under the Constitution of the United States. For this alone have I felt authorized to struggle; and I seek neither more nor less now.
I could heartily wish that every commission officer was to be previously examined; for, to my certain knowledge, there are persons who have already crept into commission without abilities or fit qualification: I am myself far from desiring to be excused.
Eighty percent of American managers cannot answer with any measure of confidence these seemingly simple questions: What is my job? What in it really counts? How well am I doing?
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