Internal and external challenges face every leader. These challenges cause leaders to question their ability, opportunity, position, and purpose in leadership.

Confidence in one’s ability diminishes when leaders experience failure, suffer discouragement, or they are harshly criticized by others.

When leaders face this challenge they need to approach each area carefully.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal” is the powerful thought expressed by Winston Churchill. Recognizing that the only time failure exists is when we give up helps us redirect our thinking when success is beyond our reach.

Suffering discouragement generally follows moments of failure. When discouragement takes root, if it is strong enough, we consider quitting. Learning how to overcome discouragement begins by evaluating the cause and seeking help to address it.

Criticism, even when harshly given, provides growth benefits if we are able to see them in this way. We cannot change the motives of those who criticize, but we can choose how we respond. Instead of “reacting,” we need to “act” appropriately as a spiritual leader.

While these are limited ideas, overcoming the challenge is possible. Seek to walk the right path.

Numerous challenges to leadership exist, and narrowing it down to one or two is…well, challenging. It serves leaders well to understand how to approach any challenge.

Over the next few weeks we will look at a few of these challenges and how to address them.

Communication stands as one of the most challenging areas of leadership. Who is responsible for quality communication and how should leaders address this challenge?

Google articles on communication in leadership abound. Forbes has an online article that shares ten secrets about communication in leadership. Two of the secrets are significant:

1) Speak not with a forked tongue: When leaders have a reputation that lacks character or one of poor character, people will not trust them. Communication and character go hand in hand in building trust.

2) Speak to groups as individuals: Leaders who establish a personal atmosphere where people feel they are spoken to directly as an individual builds a rapport where a leader is heard.

Please read the article and learn more ways to face the challenge of communicating in leadership.

Love is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language, yet one of the most powerful from a biblical perspective.

Franklin P. Jones once said, “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.”

Several thoughts could be shared to help us approach every situation, relationship, and decision, but one word encompasses the whole of our leadership: love.

While we often hear that love makes the world go round, this is little more than a nice saying. The thought by Jones only adds to the expression with another nice saying, but the commonality of both statements is the whole of perfection.

Love is the perfect bond of unity.
Love is the greatest among faith, hope, and love.
Loving your neighbor as yourself is the fulfillment of the royal law.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Love covers a multitude of sins.

Love is to be demonstrated above all to God, toward a friend, spouse, brother and enemy.

There is much more that could be said about love, but when love is the foundation, formation, and finishing of our words and actions, godly leadership is exemplified.

The journey through life is filled with choices. Literally, we make hundreds of choices every day. Most choices are inconsequential in nature: what clothes to wear, hygiene preparation, what to read, or television program to watch.

However, there are choices that are consequential: career, marriage, children, disciplines or where to live.

As amazing as it sounds, there is one choice – a step in the right direction – that determines all other choices, both consequential and inconsequential: the choice of Christianity.

When we make the choice of Christianity it informs every decision from that point. The type of job we choose will be different as a Christian. Who we marry will be determined by the choice of Christianity. The way we raise our children and where we live are both influenced by Christianity.

When leaders provide an example by their choice spiritually, as demonstrated in their physical choices, they are taking the right step to lead as God intends.

Now is the best time to make the choice that will change the direction of our lives and the influence we have with others.

Our current culture tends to rely on short-term orientation. Considering the consequences of our decisions a month, year, or ten years from now is almost a foreign concept, especially on an individual basis.

The validity of what this means is best determined by considering goals. What personal goals do we have for next year, five years, or ten years from now?

Also, how often do we consider the consequences of a decision to get involved in an activity of questionable influence to our Christianity and leadership?

Leaders must be active in assisting others in preparation for the long run, a long-term orientation. There is a great need to consider where we want to be in the future and what decisions will help us reach the destination with a strong godly character.

Every decision has some form of consequence, good or bad, now and in the long run.

A thoughtful process of examining these consequences will help us shape the future for our own lives and for those we lead.

Perhaps one of my favorite leadership quotes comes from John Buchan, “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.”

There is something special about this thought and its application, primarily within the spiritual realm of God’s church.

Far too often, we attempt to put greatness into others. Somehow, we fall prey to the mindset that if we can put greatness into others, they will be great.

We all need to learn the power of the lesson expressed above. Greatness is already there, in each and every person. Our task is to elicit it, draw it out of them.

Leaders must work to use the greatness that exists in each person, helping them reach their potential by implementing their own deep seeded greatness.

The challenge is how to avoid the attempt to make others what we want them to be in the journey. The kind of leadership Buchan describes requires yielding control and allowing others to blossom in the fruit of the greatness God has placed in them.

This is leadership!

A producer is defined as a person that makes, grows, or supplies goods or commodities for sale. Another idea includes someone responsible for the financial and managerial aspects of making a movie, play, etc.

Additional terms are related, e.g. builder, constructor, farmer, manager, administrator, promoter. If we were to sum it up in one thought, it would be someone who “gets things done.”

When considering the nature of our leadership, are we producing, i.e. getting things done?

The additional terms related to a producer identify what happens when a leader gets things done. They make, build, construct, farm, manage, administrate and promote.

If we are not involved in getting things done, then are we becoming the leader God wants from us?

Biblical leadership is about farming: cultivating the soil, planting and watering the seed that allows God to give the increase, bearing fruit.

If we are going to be the producers God desires, we must focus on the task God has given us to do and leave the rest to Him. Then, step back and watch the power of God!

Improving others is one of the greatest keys to successful leadership. Leaders lose the right to think about themselves, and they learn that great leadership is always about others. Jim Rohn said, “A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.”

To take this a step further, the task before us involves developing others into something greater.

For those who do poorly, we should get involved to help them do well. For the ones who do well, we should help them do even better. However, spiritual leadership drives us to a greater level.

The quality identified in this act is simple; we are talking about genuine love.

When leaders care for and demonstrate love for others they will always work to serve, placing the needs and desires of others above their own.

This attitude was beautifully exemplified in the life of Jesus and, as Christians, we have a responsibility to help the world around us see what Christianity truly looks like.

Hopefully, we will encourage the fainthearted and strengthen the mature along the way, allowing both to fulfill what God intended.

Essence is the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character. It is further described by words such as: substance, principle, fundamental quality, sum and substance.

The idea behind this description raises several questions and ideas for consideration.

What is the essence of our leadership?

When others consider that indispensable quality that determines our character, how would they describe our leadership?

Is there any substance to the fundamental qualities of our leadership?

The essence of our leadership needs to be built upon the ideas expressed by David when asking the questions connected to dwelling with God in Psalm 15: the one “who walks with integrity, works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart.”

We often focus on the ideas of integrity, righteousness, and truth. These are good and worthy to be at the core of our leading.

However, the idea behind walks, works and speaks is significant to describe the whole of the individual, what they think, do, and say. Godly leaders know that when the whole of life’s activities is defined by integrity, righteousness, and truth, others will follow.