How to Lead People
“Leadership is influence, the ability of one person to influence others”
– J. Oswald Sanders
A TOP LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE OF JESUS
People Before Paperwork - Walk Slowly thru the Crowd
a. Prayer for compassion – Follow Jesus’ steps of Matthew 9:35-38
b. Matt 9:35-38 - Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. “What a huge harvest.” he said to the disciples. “How few workers. On your knees and pray for harvest hands.” What was the progression Jesus went through in this passage?
To pray for compassion, follow Jesus’ steps (Matthew
c. Jesus built relationships - Leadership is relationships. John Maxwell – “Success involves people. People who enable you to succeed may not always come to you. In fact, they rarely do. You must go to them. “
d. Are people opportunities or interruptions??? People are not interruptions. The greater the
leadership, the more time you need with people Jesus spent more time touching people, talking to them than any other action. He touched, knew, healed, affected and mentored them.
e. John
f. It was said that President Lincoln spent 75% of his time with people, often in a relaxed, less pressured atmosphere. He probably was the most accessible President ever. This encouraged the people working for him, always having an encouraging word. He was full of compliments, always pleasant. Made a great deal of contacts with the troops by visiting and often he went to see many wounded soldiers.
CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE ILLUSTRATION
Get out a blank sheet of normal size paper. Draw about a 2-3 inch diameter circle in the middle. Next, draw a bigger size circle around that smaller one and then finally draw one last circle around the other two. When finished, you will have three concentric circles. Inside each one, you need to write many names, so give yourself room to write.
In the first circle you drew, write down all the people you come in contact with each day. In the second circle, write down the people you see within a week or two. That can mean seeing them once a week or two, or a couple times a week. Finally in the outer circle, write down the people you see a couple times or once a year. Take your time doing this. Think about the people you come in contact with. Now depending on the time of year, the people and the quantity in the circles will vary. Plus your school classes change as often as each quarter, so people will be going in and out of the three circles.
Once finished, look at the number of people you come in contact with. We call these your Circles of Influence. Too often you think that there are very few people you can or do influence, when in fact, you potentially impact and influence many. A group of 20 students did this and the average number of people in the three circles was 75 to 80.
A) Pray – one of the most important responsibilities of a spiritual leader
“Prayer determines a leader’s effectiveness more than anything else they do.” – Henry Blackaby, Spiritual Leadership, p. 119.
1) John 15:5 - Nothing of eternal significance happens apart from God. We need to be abiding, hunkering down in Jesus’ arms to nurture our relationship with Him.
Bottom line is that to be an effective spiritual leader you must be in a vibrant, growing relationship with Jesus. If you don’t have such, you need to take “spiritual” out of your description of who you are as a leader.
2) Ephesians 5:18; Jeremiah 29:13 – Who is controlling you?
3) Jeremiah 33:3; 1 Corinthians 2:6-12 – Gain God’s wisdom.
4) Matthew 7:7; Ephesians 3:20 – God is all-powerful and can do things way beyond what we see or touch. God is able to melt hard hearts.
5) Matthew 11:28-30 – Best stress reducer.
6) Mark 1:29-39 - God reveals His agenda through prayer. Your prayer life
determines your effectiveness.
7) Consider the life of George Mueller. He prayed for the daily needs of the orphanage that he ran, never asking or telling anyone of those needs and God always supplied those needs
What do you need to do in your schedule to assure you are spending time praying? Get in a small group right now and pray.
B) A Renewed Mind – Biblical Worldview
1) I Corinthians
The point here is Romans 12:1-2. We want to influence people, try to help them to think as Jesus thought, not just what Jesus would do, but how He would think. If I get you to think a certain way, your behavior will follow; i.e., Muslims, Communists,
2) Romans 12: 1-2 – Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed (changed) by the renewing of your mind.
a) How do you renew your mind?
Word of God, Holy Spirit guiding you.
b) How do you change your thinking?
Let the Word penetrate your thinking, meditating how Jesus/God
would think about something; getting God’s perspective and agreeing to follow that way.
3) Changed Thinking – (Ephesians
Literally, take the old way of thinking and replacing it with how God wants us to think.
4) Jesus – (Matthew 4:1-11) – What did He use to combat Satan? Scripture.
What is your devotional life like?
Renewed mind results in a transformed life. Work hard to renew your mind. Take off the old attitudes, old perspectives, and thoughts about…and replace them with His attitudes, thinking, and perspective. See as He sees. (Matthew 9:35-38) This is not a list of things to do. Think and respond as He does. It is not a list of do’s and don’ts. Then you will be able to test and approve, do the dos and don’ts, be able to say yes to His laws, His laws are then not threatening. Renewal breaks down our resistance to God’s rule in our lives and opens up our lives to His will. Our beliefs shape (not control) our attitudes and our actions. What you believe about…shapes your attitudes and actions (behavior toward whomever or whatever).as your beliefs. Renewed mind results in a transformed life. (Colossians 3:8-10; Ephesians 4:22-24) Can’t live like the old way because you have been given a new you. You are a new person but your brain has not been changed yet. The mind must be renewed. It doesn’t get taken out when we become a Christian.
C) Work Hard
1) Mark 1:34-29,
2) Luke 8:22-24 – Jesus had worked so hard He was sleeping through a violent
storm.
3) 1 Corinthians 11:1 – Follow me because you’re following Christ’s example.
If we will impact our people, we must be the example, the forerunner. It takes personal sacrifice to get where you need to go. If you want those with whom you have responsibility to believe a certain way, you, too, must show that behavior. You may very well have some suffering along the way to get where you need to go.
4) 2 Timothy 2:1-1; 3:10ff; I Thessalonians 2:7-10 -
Work hard. Don’t be a burden to people because you are lazy. People appreciate people who work hard.
If he is not willing to rise earlier and stay up later than others, to work harder and study more diligently than his centerpieces, he will not greatly impress his generation” - J. Oswald Sanders
D) Communicate
(In Mark 13:2, the word, “saw” in Greek is “Blepo” and means to see beneath or below the surface of what is the obvious or what we can see in front of us. What is God doing that is not obvious?)
1) Matthew 9:35-38 -
2) Learn to communicate.
a) Have Holy Spirit controlling your life.
b) Listen – develop that skill with God (Lectio Divina – Chapter 8, E.2.b) and people.
c) Verbal – [WILD offers an extended Communication Skills Seminar that helps to develop communication both in people skills and in leading discussions or public speaking. Request WILD for that seminar.]
(1) Exodus 4:10-12 - Moses gave lots of excuses because he felt he couldn’t speak well!
(2) Learn to tell stories or use illustrations
(3) Understand what you are communicating, telling people differences between a public speaker and communicator. Know your people and your material. Keep audience interested. Have a one purpose message, keep eye contact. Be close to the audience and do not have things in the way between the audience and you. Do not use a monotone voice. Use non-verbal communication. Ask questions. Read your audience.
A TOP LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE OF JESUS
Communication
a. Jesus communicated well. The Church is still going today.
b. He listened to the people and knew what to do. Though He was God, He still listened and
knew how to take care of the needs of the people that came to Him. Think of the children
that came to Him, He never shooed them off, but rather rebuked the disciples for doing such.
Matt 18:1-3 – To listen to children, you have to be focused on them. In Matt. 8 & 9, Jesus went out among the people and saw the need. In seeing the need He listened and knew which needs needed to be dealt with.
c. His communication showed He lived on a higher level. For example, the woman who had been married 5 times – John 4; Luke 19 - Zaccheus - had a longing for a changed heart unlike the way people were looking at him as a crook. He listened to people’s hearts.
d.. His communication showed he led on a higher level, too. He never discriminated, saw the
potential in every person and broke tradition. (John 4 - Woman at the well)
e. His language never condemned but uplifted. His anger focused on the sin, not the sinner. He made people feel special, except those who chose to reject Him, and that they brought upon themselves.
f. Prayer is for wisdom like Solomon - 1 Kings 3:7-9;
E) Attitude – 10 Spies vs. Caleb/Joshua (Numbers
The only difference between those who delivered the majority and minority reports was internal. Their differing reports reflected contrary attitudes toward the land, the divine promises, the people in
1) How did their views of God differ from one group to the other?
Ten spies really didn’t trust God, for God had said the land was theirs.
Caleb and Joshua trusted God.
2) How did the ten spies influence the people?
They got the people upset and swayed the people to their point of view.
3) What could have Moses done before having the 12 speak to the people?
He could have had the twelve sit down with him and discussed everything, to come up with a common solution.
4) What role does attitude play in this scenario?
Your attitude on something could sway the opinion of many people and you could do the opposite of what God desires.
5) How do you develop and maintain a positive attitude? (
a) Stay in touch with God. Keep His mindset (Isaiah 40:12-31).
b) Have a sense of humor – keep your joy (gift package).
c) Don’t make excuses – make things better. In contrast, Schwarzkopf was a leader. He kept a positive attitude. It was not that he overlooked the problems of his situation or the shortcomings of his troops. He saw them as well as or better than his predecessor had. By the time Schwarzkopf was finished with the battalion, morale was up and casualties were down. In fact, the Vietcong concluded that a new, much tougher battalion had moved into the area and repla
A TOP LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE OF JESUS
Servanthood
a. Prayer for humility - underlying attitude
1. Phil 2:3-5 – Put other people ahead of you. Consider their needs, just like Jesus considered us more important than Himself.
2. Luke
3. Luke
b. A servant gets down and dirty with his troops. Lay aside my priorities to help others fulfill theirs - John Maxwell
c. Gayle Erwin quote - Christ Jesus...made himself nothing. He made himself nothing, emptied himself-the great Kenosis. He made himself no reputation, no image. I can recall my father shaking his head and repeating over and over to himself, “If I only knew what this meant. There is something powerful here. If I only understood it.” Maybe that is why this Scripture has glued itself to my mind and equally disturbs me. Reputation is so important to me. I want to be seen with the right people, remembered in the right light, advertised with my name spelled right, lived in the right neighborhood, drove the right kind of car, wore the right kind of clothing. But Jesus made himself of no reputation. (The Jesus Style, 1988)
d. Servanthood starts with security - John 13:3 – Jesus knew who He was and what His
purpose was, so when you know these things about yourself, you can easily serve others.
e. Security is lived out by the fact that you are not into titles and positions -lowest level of influence
The secure are into towels...The insecure are into titles
The secure are people conscious...The insecure are position-conscious
The secure add value to others...The insecure want to receive value from others (Maxwell)
F) Serving – John 13:1-17
(I Corinthians
1) Why did Jesus do this?
To demonstrate His love; but that, to reach people, we must be willing to serve, be like a slave to them.
2) What does serving others show or reveal? They are important to us
a) Servant leadership flows from the love leaders have for their people.
b) Kouzes and Posner, in studying leadership traits of top CEO’s, found only one characteristic common to all – affection. These top CEO’s cared for their people and wanted their people to like them in return. People are the most important part of your ministry.
c) In order to serve, you must know and accept who you are. Secure people can serve others for they don’t worry how others perceive them. The insecure are into titles. The secure are into towels. (The Blue Outhouse)
President Harry Truman was one of the most unpretentious presidents in
WASHING FEET ILLUSTRATION
Though symbolic of what Jesus did, do wash a foot or both feet of your audience. This can be a humbling experience for the recipients, plus shows the teacher is not above the pupil.
d) We are actually serving God. We are God’s servants, doing what God wants and bringing Him glory. Jesus constantly indicated that what He was doing was to bring glory to the Father. (John 14:9-14)
G) Forgiveness/Reconciliation
Is there anything that needs to be forgiven? (Matthew 5:23-24)
1) 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 -
We are ambassadors of Christ and represent Him. By working to reconcile relationships, we are letting people see Jesus living in us.
2) John 17:10-26 -
Jesus prayed that believers would be one in unity. That means there is forgiveness in relationships. We humble ourselves with each other, then the world will see Christ!
This will impact continents!!!! Bruce Wilkinson’s two reconciliation stories of pastors in
When we are willing to forgive others, along with the other areas in this chapter, we develop great influence, not to manipulate, but to guide toward Christ. Bruce Wilkinson shares about in 1996 at Promise Keepers Pastors’ Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 40,000 pastors attended. Max Lucado was talking about unity in the Body. There would be no unity without racial reconciliation. Each participant represented a racial, ethnic, age, denomination group. All were encouraged to go to people of different racial, ethnic, age and denominational backgrounds, and seek forgiveness for what their group in ages past had done to the group being asked for forgiveness. Wilkinson was on the upper deck next to two African-American pastors. He turned to both and asked for forgiveness for what white men (whom he represented) did to African Americans in years past. One pastor quickly indicated that he received that forgiveness and forgave Bruce for white man’s sins against his people.
The other pastor would not budge. Bruce got down on his knees and pleaded a number of times over the course of 10-20 minutes or so. That pastor would not look at Bruce, or said anything. Finally, after pleading again, Bruce saw a tear rolling down the African American pastor’s face. He told Bruce, his ancestors were slaves, and the white slave owner was terrible to his relatives. He had never forgiven a white person for what happened to his people, until that day. Forgiveness broke through and reconciliation could begin – the relationships could begin to be mended.
Story #2 with Bruce – In
Forgiveness and reconciliation are powerful influencing tools that Satan doesn’t want, because revival can break out as a result!
H) Word to the Wise…
1) “With great power and influence comes great responsibility” (Spiderman)
2 Samuel
“Some will go to great lengths to serve you” (Superman). Spiritual leadership is great responsibility.
2) Moral failure repercussions are devastating. Be very careful.
3) Accepting a new leadership position must be preceded by much prayer.
4) We need excellent accountability (2 Corinthians 5:9-11, 2 Timothy 4:8)
We all will give an account of what we have done, and leaders have a great responsibility to be godly and Christ-honoring!
