Lately, I believe the Lord has been convicting me deeply of my need to grow in Christlike servanthood. In this pursuit, I came across a book titled "The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership" by James Hunter.
I first downloaded the sample on Kindle to discern if it was worth reading. The introduction gripped my heart, and I decided to purchase the book. As I began reading, the Spirit of God used it to expose my shortcomings, correct my heart, rebuke my pride, and encourage me to pursue servanthood.
The first statement that captivated me was this insightful observation by Hunter:
“Young people do not respond well to the old-fashioned command-and-control style of leadership, evidenced by polls showing nearly 70 percent of the ‘millennial’ generation (those born after 1980) who voluntarily terminate their employment do not quit their organization—they quit their boss.”
This struck a deep chord within me. I was born again and raised in a context that upheld the traditional, top-down leadership model. While some people responded well to my leadership, others struggled to relate, and eventually walked away. That rejection left a deep wound in my heart.
Over time, the Lord showed me that I must change—not merely for the sake of effectiveness, but for the sake of faithfulness. Leadership in the kingdom of God is about becoming a servant of people and serving them. The Lord Jesus said, “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant” (Matt. 20:26).
This book has taught me several valuable lessons, a few of which I want to highlight in what follows. These lessons are not merely leadership strategies—they are calls to conform more fully to the image of Christ, the true Servant-Leader.
Treat people the way you would want to be treated. The Golden Rule.
Can you imagine following a leader who is impatient, unkind, arrogant, disrespectful, selfish, unforgiving, dishonest, and uncommitted? Is that a person who would inspire and influence you to action? Someone you would sign up to follow?
Leadership has little to do with your style (personality) and everything to do with your substance (character).
What is character? That person you are in the dark when nobody is looking. Character is doing the right thing, winning those battles in your heart and mind between what you want to do and what you should do.
If you want to improve your leadership skills, you must improve your character skills. And that’s the rub. Developing new character habits and breaking the old habits takes time and a great deal of effort. It means we have to behave in new ways. It means we have to change.
If we focus only on tasks and not on the relationship, we may experience turnover, rebellion, poor quality, low commitment, low trust, and other undesirable symptoms.
Healthy families, healthy teams, healthy churches, healthy businesses, and even healthy lives are about healthy relationships. The truly great leaders are skilled at building healthy relationships.
Leaders should identify and meet the needs of their people, serve them. I did not say that they should identify and meet the wants of their people, be slaves to them. Slaves do what others want, servants do what others need. There is a world of difference between meeting wants and meeting needs.
I try very hard not to talk negatively about those who are not present…We should never treat people differently from the way we would want to be treated. I don’t think we would want people talking about us behind our backs.
When we love others by extending ourselves, we will have to serve and sacrifice. When we serve and sacrifice we build authority with people. And when we have built authority with people, then we’ve earned the right to be called leader.
All of life is relational, both vertically to God, and horizontally to our neighbor. Each of us has to make choices about those relationships…Relationships have to be carefully developed and nurtured if they are to grow and mature.
I cannot always control how I feel about other people but I certainly am in control of how I behave toward other people. Feelings can come and go depending upon what you ate for dinner last night! My neighbor may be difficult and I may not like him very much, but I can still behave lovingly. I can be patient with him, honest and respectful, even though he chooses to behave poorly.
Be kind to others. How far you go in life depends upon your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in your life, you will have been all of these.
Egos can really get in the way and become barriers with people. Know-it-alls and arrogant leaders are a real turn-off for most people. Such arrogance is also a dishonest pretense because nobody knows it all or has it all together. Humility to me is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking about yourself less.
Humbleness is nothing more than a true knowing of yourself and your limitations. Those who see themselves as they truly are would surely be humble indeed.’ Humility is about being real and authentic with people and discarding the false masks.
Forgiveness is not about pretending bad things didn’t happen or not dealing with things as they arise. To the contrary, we must practice assertive behavior with others, not passive doormat behavior or aggressive behavior that violates the rights of others. Assertive behavior is being open, honest, and direct with others but is always done in a respectful manner. Forgiving behavior is dealing with situations as they arise in an assertive manner and then letting go of any lingering resentment. As the leader, if you are not able to let go of the resentment, it will consume you and render you ineffective.
When we choose to love, to extend ourselves for others, we will be required to be patient, kind, humble, respectful, selfless, forgiving, honest, and committed. These behaviors will require us to serve and sacrifice for others. We may have to sacrifice our egos or even our bad moods on a particular day. We may have to sacrifice our desire to blast someone rather than be assertive with them. We will have to sacrifice by loving and extending ourselves for people we may not even like.
Our true character as the leader is revealed when we have to extend ourselves for the tough ones, when we are put in the crucible and have to love people we don’t particularly like. Then we find out about how committed we are. Then we find out what kind of leader we’ve really got.
The labors of leadership and love are character issues. Patience, kindness, humility, selflessness, respectfulness, forgiveness, honesty, commitment. These character building blocks, or habits, must be developed and matured if we are to become successful leaders who will stand the test of time.
During my reading of this book, I reached out to James Hunter himself and asked for a word of advice. His response was simple yet profound:
“Stephen: I have three words of advice—Pray, Pray, Pray. This has been my ‘secret sauce’ in my consultancy for decades, and God has never let me down.”
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