It’s all about the word play

There is something about hosting a group of students at your house that can really bring a lot of emotion, thoughts and lessons. We are currently starting a Student Leadership Team here in Student Life Ministry. We have met twice now and I must say that we have 6 very gifted, talented and dedicated students involved.

There was something that happened last night that I felt as though I needed to write about. It is something that I have been thinking about a lot and something that I feel leaders must do to succeed.

The question was: what is your definition of Leadership?

We went on to talk about all sorts of people that have said many different things about the term leadership. We talked about the difference between being a Godly leader and a secular leader(not that secular leaders are not good, smart or unworthy). We discussed what it meant to be a servant leader and what that will look like throughout their lives. It was just a real good discussion and teaching time for these students.

As I sat there, facilitating the conversation and helping the students wrestle through some of these thoughts, I began to think about my own definition of leadership. I started to think about the things that I have read and the lessons that I have been taught. It started to make me think afterwards; how do I define leadership?

Well, since I am not too much of a sentence guy and I am much more of a word guy(hence scrabble is one of my favorite games of all time!) these three words came to mind:

- Pursue — There is a conviction in my heart that Leaders need to pursue multiple things in life, but the main two would be relationships and wisdom. Leaders need to work hard at relationships because being a leader, you are surrounded by people and if you are not working at the relationships that you have or will have, you will not succeed as a leader. As a leader you should be pursuing wisdom of God. God provides wisdom and will give wisdom to those who seek and ask for it. Part of pursuing wisdom is learning how to discern what is right and what is wrong, God’s wisdom will help any leader learn how to have a discerning heart.

- Communicate — You need to have good communication skills as a leader. Leaders are called to talk to people, write letters, communicate with people all day long. As a leader, I believe we are called to live a life of communication with others as well as communication with God.

- Influence — The third part of this is more of how to gauge results of my own leadership. The influence that you have on others is a huge indicator of whether or not you have succeeded at the first two. The influence that you have on students, on adults, on staff members, will all come through on account that you have pursued wisdom and relationships along with communicated clearly. Influence can happen in many different ways, it can happen through the way a leader speaks, through the way a leader serves others, through the way a leader writes, influence can come in all different forms and at all different times. So influence is a huge part of leadership.

These are my three words that describe leadership in my mind.

What are the words that describe leadership in your mind?

I would love to hear what your personal definition of leadership is.

So what is leadership to you?