5 Essential Aspects of Being a Leader
People lead, whether or not they have an official position. Many people are leaders, the question is about whether they are good or bad leaders. I have learned a thing our two about leadership in my years of Christian ministry.
1. Have a direction. Call it what you will, vision, mission statement, five-year plan. I don’t care about the name. Don’t be just doing stuff. Determine where you want to go and gather your people to go there with you.
2. Lead by encouraging. There is a certain type of leader that leads by criticism. The thought is that people do not like criticism, so they will work hard to avoid it. Try leading by encouragement instead. Find something good that your people are doing and tell them. Encouragement is much more motivating than criticism.
3. Lead yourself. It does not matter if you have expectations for your people if you are not meeting those expectations yourself. Do not ask your people to do anything that you are not willing to do yourself.
4. Don’t do it all yourself. Many leaders get there by being good at many things. The problem is that not all people can do the tasks as well as the leader. The temptation is for the leader to take over everything because they cannot stand the decrease in quality. You will be much more effective if you let others do their job even if it is not as good as you would do it.
5. Don’t lead for the glory. People hold up their leaders. It can be tempting to do it for the glory. That is a sure way of crashing your ministry. Do it for the glory of God. Be a servant,
