Is Your Style of Leadership Biblical?

As I preach through the book of Nehemiah, I am reminded of repeated conversations I had with my father over the years.

I learned a lot from my father.  He was an industrial engineer. His 40-year career included running his own consulting firm to working for large industrial employers like Motorola, McDonnell Douglas, Arizona Public Service, and American Express.

Changes in management style happened in waves as the Post World War 2 era morphed into the new millennium. He experienced broad changes in business management styles–from the militaristic top-down, my way or the highway, structure manned by War Veterans to the Japanese group-oriented approach that dominated the 1990s. Oddly enough this style of management was taught to the Japanese by an American named W. Edwards Deming.

Sometimes secular models of leadership “work” in ministry settings.

These models of management have been mimicked in the church. The great generation of World War 2 veterans that entered the ministry after the war ended built large ministries and evangelistic churches. Many of those leaders managed based on an authoritarian military model. It worked. It was effective. And effectiveness always breeds imitation.

My father understood the Bible, had long been involved in church leadership and had a wise understanding of the business world. He often warned me to be careful. He told me that preachers of my generation would be tempted to try to lead as the great ones of the previous generation did, and if we did that we would fail miserably.

“People today and into the future will not tolerate that kind of overtly authoritarian leadership style,” he said. “The nation that had to galvanize itself together to fight existential threats from Germany and Japan would follow those kinds of leaders, but the coming generations will not.”

He was right.  Preachers of my generation that blindly imitated that type of leadership were eventually rejected by their congregations. Others that capitulated felt like they were failures or weak because they could not lead as their predecessors did. Both responses are wrong.

We must follow a biblical model of leadership.

Dad encouraged me to develop a philosophy and style of leadership that is not based upon secular models, but rather upon biblical principles.  There is such a model. We call it Biblical Servant Leadership.

The idea of servant leadership is found throughout scripture–modeled from Moses to Paul. Jesus laid out principles for leadership as He prepared his disciples to lead the church in Acts.

It is easy to revert from biblical leadership to something else.

Much work has been done on the biblical nature of servant leadership, but its principles are sometimes hard to implement as churches and faith-based institutions grow. Our tendency is to revert to secular models. Sometimes pastors read too many secular management books and venture away from biblical principles. Sometimes more secular approaches are just easier to implement in the short term.  After all, it is much takes less effort to just command rather than convince. Other times, ministry leaders capitulate to well-intentioned businessmen who are convinced that what works in their secular business should work in the church or Christian ministry.

The local church is not a business.  Certainly, there should be “businesslike” practices implemented by the church, especially in the area of financial management. But these practices are not just business principles, they are biblical principles.  For instance, the biblical principle of financial accountability is plainly taught and modeled in 2 Corinthians 8:16-23.  Paul’s statement that we should provide honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of men is the essence of financial accountability.

Not only churches but also Christian ministries must operate on a biblical model of servant leadership.

Churches and Christian ministries must follow a thoroughly biblical formula for such things as defining the bottom line, constituency motivation, conflict resolution, and much more. Every Christian ministry must at key moments answer the call of God to take steps of faith that are inexplicable in a secular business context. There is so much more to consider.

Our model for organizational leadership must be found in the Bible first or we will surrender to pragmatism. When we do that, we lose the smile of our Lord upon what we do.