On Leading Well

Category: Books & Quotes

  • Great Summer (re)Read : Spiritual Leadership

    Spiritual Leadership: A Commitment to Excellence for Every Believer, Oswald Sanders (2007 Update, Moody)

    So, what are you reading this summer? Beside the Bible, I know of no other single book that gives such a clear perspective and pathway to personal growth as a Christian servant leader. You may already own this book. My well-worn, underlined, dog-eared copy has served as a leadership compass for the past 25 years. I have discovered that rereading it periodically sheds crucial new insights into the current leadership challenges I face. Oswald’s perspectives speak to any level of leadership complexity because they are rooted and grounded in timeless principles.

    Takeaway: “Spiritual leadership requires Spirit-filled people. Other qualities are important; to be Spirit-filled is indispensable.”

    Sanders wrote this while serving as Consulting Director of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in the 1960’s. This excellent compilation of messages to missionary leaders is perpetually relevant. Here are the chapter titles: An Honorable Ambition, The Search For Leaders, The Master’s Master Principle, Can You Become A Leader?, Insights on Leadership from Paul, Insights on Leadership from Peter, Qualities Essential to Leadership (1, 2), Above All Else, Prayer and Leadership, The Leader and Time, The Leader and Reading, Improving Leadership, The Cost of Leadership, The Responsibilities of Leadership, Tests of Leadership, The Art of Delegation, Replacing Leaders, Reproducing Leaders, Perils of Leadership, The Leader Nehemiah.

    The new updated version (2007) recasts the tone in 21st century language, dropping archaic references to now unknown British leaders and using language that honors both men and women serving in leadership. This version also includes reflection questions following each chapter, an excellent 20-page small group study guide, and a very helpful name and Scripture index.

    Do yourself, your family and your team a favor this summer: invest ten bucks for the updated version and savor Sanders.

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  • Two Quick Thoughts on Life-giving Reproduction

    “Better to give a year or so to one or two men who learn what it means to conquer for Christ than to spend a lifetime with a congregation just keeping the program going.”
    – Robert Coleman in Master Plan of Evangelism

    “A man’s greatest talents are not in how much he has been able to do alone, but in how effective he has been in getting others to work with him. A good leader leads men; a great leader trains leaders.“
    – Henrietta Mears, mentor to Bill Bright

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  • Suffering Our Way Into Leadership – Part 1

    Nelson Mandela reputedly said when asked how he became the president of South Africa, “I suffered my way into leadership.” Nelson was not alone.

    In 1775 George Washington, in his formal acceptance of leadership the Continental Army, gave Congress a fair warning: “I beg it be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” Only one year later, after a disheartening string of military defeats, Washington wrote candidly to a friend about the miseries of leadership: “Such is my situation that if I were to wish the bitterest curse to an enemy on this side of the grave, I should put him in my stead with my feelings.”

    If leadership is such a strain, why bother?

    I can think of no better advice than this quote from William Sangster’s journal. This is one dog-eared page I turn to during the difficult times:

    “This is the will of God for me. I did not choose it. I sought to escape it. But it has come. Something else has come, too. A sense of certainty that God does not want me only for a preacher. He wants me also for a leader – a leader in Methodism.


    I feel a commissioning to work under God for the revival of this branch of His Church – careless of my own reputation; indifferent to the comments of older and jealous men.


    I am thirty-six. If I am to serve God in this way, I must no longer shrink from the task – but do it.


    I have examined my heart for ambition. I am certain it is not there. I hate the criticism I shall evoke and the painful chatter of people. Obscurity, quiet browsing among books, and the service of simple people is my taste – but by the will of God, this is my task, God help me.


    Bewildered and unbelieving, I hear the voice of God say to me: “I want to sound the note through you.” O God, did ever an apostle shrink from his task more? I dare not say “no” but, like Jonah, I would fain run away.”


    Again, we must ask ourselves: If leadership is such a strain, why bother?

    Quotes from David McCullough, 1776, and Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership.

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