Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. —Acts 20:28
The most critical factor in Christian leadership today is the motive for leading. God wants this motive to reflect a focus on others — to reflect humility. Indeed, the only leaders God bestowed His blessing upon in Scripture were those who were humble.
Musser & Orke's "Motives for Leading" enables Christian leaders to measure their humility and provides a Biblical model for personal change.
Who was the greatest leader in the Bible? God's Word gives us many wonderful examples of humble, Godly leaders. But it's impossible to rank order Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah and Paul. Nevertheless, most Christians put David somewhere in the upper echelon.
In Psalm 78:72 we read, "And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them." We believe when the psalmist wrote these words he meant that David had extraordinary leadership ability. David could cast vision with the best of them. He could recruit strong leaders to surround him. He could organize, motivate and inspire his followers. And he knew how to get things done. David led Israel with "skillful hands."
But these leadership skills alone didn't make David a true servant of God. Hitler too could cast vision and organize, motivate and inspire his followers. He too knew how to get things done. But there the comparison ends. What separated David from most other leaders was his motive for leading. This motive is what the psalmist called "integrity of heart." Although there are probably many elements that comprise integrity of heart, we believe that humility is the most important.
C.S. Lewis once defined humility this way: "Humility is not thinking less of ourselves, it is thinking of ourselves less." Thinking of ourselves less, of course, implies thinking of others more. But both Scripture and research reveal that there are two distinct dimensions of the other-centeredness that is so characteristic of humility. The first dimension focuses on the goals people seek in life. Scriptural humility requires that a person seek first and foremost to achieve goals that are focused on the good of others. Although this truth is expressed throughout Scripture, it is stated most clearly in Philippians 2: 3-4, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."
But Scripture suggests that being humble is not simply a matter of having selfless goals. It is also about the means we employ to reach these goals. For example, in Colossians 3:12 the apostle Paul tells us that we are to clothe all our actions with virtues like compassion, kindness, gentleness and patience. That is, to be truly humble, we must seek to reach "selfless goals" through the use of "sensitive" means.
A powerful description of sensitive means in Scripture can be found in the fifth chapter of Galatians. In verses 22 and 23, the apostle Paul writes, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." These fruit of the Spirit all reflect values that are sensitive and that edify others. They are the sensitive means through which selfless goals are to be attained.
But how can we know if we possess a humble motive for leading? To answer this question we have developed a model that we believe measures the extent to which a person can be considered a humble servant. What we developed is not simply an intuitive approach. Our model is based on extensive Biblical study, on years of scholarly research that has been published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and on the consulting interactions we've had with thousands of clients.
Simply stated, the model combines the two types of goals we can have in life (selfless or selfish) with the two types of means we can use to reach these goals (sensitive or insensitive). These two dimensions are then combined to form a "Motives for Leading" matrix that is presented below:
As can be seen in the model, there are four distinct motives for leading. The motive that has the least humility is found in the quadrant labeled Ruthless Maximizer. Leaders in this quadrant are seeking selfish goals and are insensitive toward others as they go about reaching them. Two other motives for leading are Sociable Egoists (leaders having selfish goals, but using sensitive means) and Determined Crusaders (leaders having selfless goals, but using insensitive means). These motives for leading represent a mid-range of humility. The highest level of humility can be found in the Humble Servant motive for leading. Leaders who are Humble Servants have selfless end-goals and use sensitive means to attain them.
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