Living Moments (Part 39) – Jesus Model Of Leadership.

At Kazakhstan, I shared with the leaders about what I called the Jesus Model Of Leadership.

I believe that all organisations succeed or fail primarily because of leadership.
Nothing great is achieved without a great leader and a great team. I have spent literally my whole life in search of a leadership model to produce such a great organisation..

My years of observation and practice have led me to conclude that there is possibly no better model of revolutionary leadership than the one created by the Lord Jesus Christ. With only three years to execute His plan, He literally changed the world.

In a nutshell, these are the critical success factors of His leadership and blueprint of operation. They are not in any order of priority and are a part of a synergistic and integrated model for carrying out a revolution.

1. Envision – Have A God-Sized Vision.

As a leader, if your people do not know what you believe in and where you are going to, they will never follow you.

The Lord Jesus challenged His followers to go out to the whole wide world and change every single person.

What a heart-stirring and mind-boggling vision.

He empowered them to reclaim humanity for our Creator, to connect and re-connect people to God.

If the followers lived according to the Blueprint, they could enjoy an overflowing abundance of life. They could stretch their potential, maximise their performance, and fulfill their worthwhile pursuits.

This assurance can only be offered by and given to all of them by our Creator.

In addition, He called upon our Creator’s Spirit to live within them so as to mentor, coach and guide them. They would never be alone again.

To make it easier for them to fulfil the vision, He taught them to start from their centre of influence- the low-lying fruits, so to speak.

Then they could move to another outer circle of contacts, followed by the next circle. Ultimately, they would be able to reach out to the ends of the world.

Think: How big is a God-sized vision? How electrifyingly big is your dream?

2. Exemplify – Set The Right Example.

The Lord Jesus did not only cast a God-sized vision, He set the example through living with and among them.

He knew full well that every one of His word and action will be witnessed by many and recorded for eternity.  He also encouraged His followers to model themselves after Him.

Leadership is an action you take for yourself and for your teammates. The first action is to be the person that you want your team mates to become.

As the saying goes, ‘A stream will never rise above its source.’

Your teammates will be inclined to follow in your footsteps to reach the desired destination. Therefore, you need to continue to learn, improve, and achieve a higher standards of performance and results.

There is no more powerful way to start the journey than to start by changing yourself. As Mahatma Gandhi might say- Be the change you want to see in the world.

Be the leader you would follow and the leader others will want to follow as well.
If you  cannot lead yourself, you cannot lead others. If you cannot love yourself, you cannot love others.

How you live your life will exert a tremendous influence on your teammates. You need to possess qualities that will win their cooperation, trust, respect and affection.

Your teammates will not follow you if they don’t trust you. And the best way to earn trust is to walk your talk. You need to say what you will do and do what you say. In the process, you must earn the right to lead.

Set the right example on how to achieve the God-sized vision. Lead the charge in living the dream – right at the front.

Think: How should you live your life so as to help lead others achieve the God-sized vision?

3. Enroll: Develop An Effective Team.

The Lord Jesus carefully selected the right number of the right people with the right talents to follow Him.

He developed them in the right way and forged the right team dynamics to achieve the God-sized vision.

Simply recruiting a person does not mean that he has been enrolled into your team to fulfil the God-sized vision. There must be a total commitment to the vision.

The person must take the best possible action in accordance with his unique talents and strengths. He must develop a synergy and be in alignment with the other team mates so as to achieve the desired outcomes.

To do that, you need to develop an effective system. The quality of your system will determine your team’s speed of growth and achievements.

The system must help the team and team mates to achieve the following:

a. Redesign. The system must empower them to change themselves so as to live and fulfill the dream.

b. Recruit. After the  buy-in into the vision,  the system must empower the team mates to recruit and enrol more and better people to the team.

c. Retain. The system must be able to retain the right people and reject the wrong people.

d. Refine. The system must be open-ended and subject to change brought about by lifelong learning and personal improvement.

e. Re-engineer. At the right time, you need to wisely remove the system and replace it with a new and more appropriate system. This is to help you achieve not only incremental but also quantum leaps of improvements.

f. Reproduce. The system does not work if it cannot be reproduced, improved upon, and executed by current and future generation of followers.

Think: How can you enrol people to join you in fulfilling a worthwhile cause?

4. Empower: Enable Them To Fulfil The Vision.

The Lord Jesus used a complete toolkit of strategies and techniques to ensure that His followers were equipped to carry out their roles and responsibilities.

Along the way, He played different roles, including acting as cheerleader, counsellor and coach. He was versatile in carrying out his duties so as to achieve the desired results.

He applied an ‘I Do, You Do, We Do’ system to help them move from dependence to independence and then to interdependence.

First, He showed the way. Then, He worked together with them to bring about even signs and wonders. He developed on-the-job possibilities for them to work on their own but under His supervision and guidance.

The Lord Jesus harnessed the best of their unique talents and strengths. He also helped them to work together as one body and in one spirit to fulfill one vision.

His model is based on a ‘Leader build Leaders…’ model. He first taught them how to be great leaders, knowing that as great leaders, they would be in a better position to develop more and better leaders. The cycle of leadership development continued until it took on a healthy life by itself.

The best way to have the best leaders in your team is not just to recruit great leaders but to also produce great leaders out of your current teammates. The process of training and developing them is a critical part of your duties and is an ongoing process.

In the process of developing them, you will also be developing yourself. When you invest in developing people, you are on the way to living the best life

You will need to encourage your teammates to develop others until the cycle of training and development takes on an ongoing positive growth.

See your team mates not just for who they but who they can become. Treat them as leaders and they will be more inclined to rise up to become just that.

In essence, expect the best to get the best out from them.

One of the greatest legacies of a leader is the development of other leaders and your contribution to their lasting sustainable results.

Your achievement will rise to the level of your belief in your people and commitment to take massive action to create a desired future.

Think: How can you develop more and better leaders for your team?

5. Encourage: Continue To Edify Them.

The Lord Jesus has a servant’s heart. It was very clear in His mind that He came not to be served but to serve.

The Lord Jesus taught His followers that whatever they did should never be done to serve their selfish interests or satisfy their ego.

He taught them to be humble and to value people above themselves. They were not only expected to meet peoples’ needs and requirements, but to help carry their burdens as well.

The Lord Jesus’ concept of a win-win relationship was that others must win before you can. If you want to be successful, you must help your teammates to be successful first.

He also appealed to His followers to serve others generously, and without complaint.

At the core of His operating principle is Love.

To Him, Love is the driving force behind the greatest commandments. We do to others what we wish others to do to us.

By the same token, we must not do to others what we do not not want others to do to us. This Golden Rule is the underlying truth in all laws and rules.

As a leader, if you don’t have a heart to love and serve your people, you don’t deserve and qualify to be a leader.

Love is the most powerful force in the world. It is sad that we do not do more to ignite and raise the level of love that our Creator has placed within us.

If we apply love wisely, we can inspire our teammates to greatness.

Think: How can you apply love and use it to strengthen your team?

6. Excel: Die To Live.

It is a paradoxical truth taught by the Lord Jesus that you cannot appreciate life if you do not understand death. If you want to live, you need to die to yourself.

Only when you leave behind the things that hold you back can our Creator help you re-create the best future. The process of re-creation is an ongoing process throughout your lifetime.

This wisdom can also be applied to the leadership process. You need to be willing to creatively ‘destroy’ your team and redesign it so as to capitalise on new opportunities in our fast-changing landscape.

Your capacity, ability and agility to reinvent yourself to meet changing expectations will determine your- and your teams’ winning edge in the new economy.

Your ongoing results will be determined by your competence in thinking out of the box to achieve the next level of growth.

Think: How can you creatively ‘destroy’ your model of operation and redesign it to achieve a higher level of success?

The Jesus Model Of Leadership is a proven model. It contains an infinite amount of wisdom that I am still uncovering.

It is by no means the easiest to implement but it is clearly the most effective way to become a great leader and to build a great team.

Go4It!
I hope this message will find a place in your heart.

By the way, I have also recorded other reflections.

Visit my Inspiration blog at http://liewinspiration.wordpress.com/

Visit my Transformation blog at http://hsrpatrickliew.wordpress.com/

Please read them and continue to teach me.

Life is FUNtastic!