"When I get home people will ask me, 'Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? Why? You some war junkie?' I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is."
SFC Norm "Hoot" Hooten, 1SFODD
People dole out thousands of dollars each year for seminars and conferences on leadership. Corporations routinely send their employees to these venues in order that they will somehow come away with the magic formula on what it takes to lead others. Sad to say, but I could save these companies a whole lot of money with some simple advice. First, however, we need to agree on what makes a good leader. Is a good leader someone who dictates instructions to others from the relative safety of their corner corporate office? Or, as I believe, is a good leader one who walks and works with those they have been chosen to lead? When one looks at the styles of military leaders, the ones most remembered are the ones who led from the front lines and not from the rear. One of the most celebrated generals in our nations history, General George Patton, made this a common practice during his career. Patton was a soldiers general and his men respected him for that. In my opinion, I would rather work for someone who wasn't afraid to get their pants dirty like the rest of us than someone who killed time in a corporate office. I've seen too many times the weak leadership of those who were disconnected from their frontline workers. I happen to work for such a agency currently. The traditional corporate model on leadership is one who sits at a desk and delegates. I get it. But a corner office does not a leader make. I look at the example of the leadership of our mainstream churches and I cringe. Total corporate business model on top down leadership. The lead pastor dictates to the assistant pastor who dictates to another assistant who...well you get the picture. But is this the way that Jesus wants His church to operate? Is it the desire of the Lord that our churches be run by the top down business model? Is it the Lords desire that there be church leadership at all? If there are no leaders, who is the head of the church? That would be Jesus Himself {Colossians 1:18}.
Now Jesus calling them to Him said, "You are aware that the chiefs of the nations are lording it over them, and the great are coercing them. Not thus is it to be among you. But whosoever may be wanting to become great among you, let him be your servant, and whoever may be wanting to be foremost among you, let him be your slave, even so as the Son of Mankind came, not to be served but to serve, and to give His soul a ransom for many."
Matthew 20: 25-28, Concordant New Testament
I look at the leadership model of Jesus and I see something we could all learn from. For Jesus did not seek to Lord Himself over those who followed Him. I'm thinking He would not have been too comfortable in some corner office somewhere dictating His desires upon others. From the beginning Jesus presented Himself as lowly and meek. Born in a manger. Raised in a modest family. The birth and life of Jesus was not what one might expect of a chosen messiah or king. But I'm certain that this is the way our heavenly Father intended it to be. Jesus did not lead His disciples by edict, but by example. Wherever His disciples traveled, Jesus was there with them. They shared meals by the sea. Conversations along dusty roads. Jesus called on those who followed Him to learn from Him. He is the textbook definition of learning by example. Then again, what corporate executive would be caught dead comparing themselves to their underlings? What corporate model advocates leading from the bottom up? Yet this is what we get with Jesus. It is Jesus, the Son of God, who makes His home in us today {Galatians 2:20}. It seems to me that this has less to do with leadership and more to do with relationship. In the corporate model, relationships are definitely frowned upon.
Who being inherently in the form of God, deems it not pillaging to be equal with God, nevertheless empties Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming to be in the likeness of humanity, and, being found in fashion as a human, He humbles Himself, being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Philippians 2: 6-8, Concordant New Testament
~Scott~
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