Recently, I am involved a little bit in the recruiting process for my company. With the salary range we were given, we can only recruit fresh college graduate with little work experience. We developed job descriptions and some information about the company and our division. As resumes poured into my mail box, I am struggling to make my decision even to formally invite the candidates for interview. Should I select them based on their academic performance, after school activities, social skills? I don’t think I could choose base on a single factor alone. I think well rounded person is better. But, is this what the bible says?
Furthermore, how can we project that these candidates will be the next generation leader that could lead the new divisions some day? What the bible say about this? Specifically, what the bible say about ability for individual to grow into mature disciple and then be courageous leader.
Finally, will these candidates fit into the culture of our organization so that they could grow without hampering others’ progress? Does our organization ready to develop new leader? Do we see expansion into new market or see growth by attrition? I am thinking what the bible says about the community where the leader could grow and mature and what kind of skills these next generation leaders should have.
This paper shares my current struggle and lesson learned from God’s word on these three questions:
- What area that God’s want us to grow?
- What is the best past indicator of potential leader?
- What kind of organization that produce leader?
These three questions can be rephrased so that it could be relevant to us in ICF as follow,
- What should be the characteristics of our leaders?
- How can we disciple and be a disciple?
- What should be the culture of our fellowship so that we could continually produce excellent “Christian” that can lead in their family, society and church?
I am putting emphasis on leader in this sharing, because similar to ICF the greatest resources of any organization is its leaders. Please be not mistaken, I am intentionally mention leaders not the employee. Yes, we need good employee but it is not as critical as having good leader.
Discipleship Process – Biblical Way
There is one verse in the bible that describes the perfect discipleship process. We could find it in Luke 2:52, that Jesus increases in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. When the bible says increase in wisdom, it does not mean that Jesus gain knowledge. It means more than that. James 3:17 says that wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. The only way we can attain wisdom such as this is by acknowledging God’s sovereignty, majesty, holiness, and love, as it is written in Proverbs 9:10: “ the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.
As Jesus increases in stature, and in favor of God and man, Jesus grows physically, spiritually, and relational with other people. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says that in whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God.
Spiritual formation is very important and there is no short cut to it. We cannot cut back on our daily bible reading and our sacrifices in both finance and other resources for us to continue to grow. 2 Timothy 2:15 says that Timothy as a disciple and a leader needs to study the word of God as a worker. The bible wants us to model David’s relationship with God that his soul longing for the relationship with God as the deer look for the water. Another part of spiritual growth is to acknowledge our weaknesses and then flee from temptation especially in the sexual sin.
All our relationships with other people are affected by our relationship with God. If we want to be like Christ, who has impactful relationship because of His humble, selfless, and sacrificial love, we cannot do it alone. We need God’s presence in our lives. We also need God’s grace to redeem us from our arrogance, selfish, and self serving life.
Discipleship – Corporate Way
Each company has its own specific discipleship method, but in general the process can be breakdown into three: defining the leaders, mentoring or coaching, and deploying the leaders. In most companies, the process of selecting the “fast track” managers are not well defined and typically causes negative dents on most employee morals. Most of these “stars” are not nurtured by the management team instead they are by nature are high performers.
During the mentoring or coaching process, these stars are typically placed in high profile projects so that they could be well compensated and well recognized when the project is a success. Then, the CEO of the company engages these new stars before being deployed to their daily assignments. The CEO describes his expectation and tries to build relationship so that they are loyal to the CEO.
There are a lot of practical steps we could learn from the corporate world, for example how leaders need to earn their dues and be recognized accordingly. However, we have to be very careful in imitating the corporate way in discipleship. As the old adage says that we go to work to make the most money possible, the basic worldview of corporate discipleship is very materialistic. The reason these stars made extra efforts to get ahead is not to serve the corporate or other people, he is to serve himself.
However, we need to realize that corporation itself is not evil. Corporation becomes evil when the leadership fall into sin. To protect itself from evil leadership, corporation has to put character in similar importance with content and capability when selecting the leadership.
Defining Leadership – Biblical Way
It is strange that the way God’s chooses leader. Throughout the bible God choice of leaders was surprising. God chose Moses a murderer and a coward to lead the Israelites against the most powerful kingdom of the world. God chose the line of Judah and not Joseph for the Messiah to be born. What is God’s criteria when He chooses his man:
- Anyone that answers His call of repentance, submission, and new life with Christ (1 Corinthians 1:26). Anyone qualifies to be God’s people but most of the time it he who is lonely and weary, broken and weak. Anyone that realizes that there is no hope outside God. These people are typically the worst criminals, murderers, the poor, and the meek. People with power will not admit that they need God. In essence, this criteria is very selective and it is selecting the worst from the worst.
- Anyone that has faith in His Son – the Christ – that he be willing to sacrifice everything for God.
- Anyone that is obedience to Him. God calls us to be leaders in our fellowship. When He calls us, it will be very specific. People that He called to be a leader are typically marked by:
- Has a desire to do the noble task of a leader (1 Timothy 3:1)
- Above reproach – no skill replaces character
- Good work ethics and godly lifestyle.
These three marks of God’s leaders are required to influence and bring people together for a common goal. As an influencer, a leader needs to be a good role model and mentor on one hand and a minister on the other hand. In ICF, where the resources are so limited, the leader needs to be able to motivate and guide their followers so they are empowered, equipped, and engaged in the battle.
How about in corporate world, how we chose our next generation leaders.
Defining Leadership – Corporate Way
I just had a lunch last week with a wonderful guy. He has been a marine for 5 years and had two tour of duty and has earned a rank of captain. He is smart and full of potential and I am pitching to my boss to recruit him into our organization. After the lunch, I thought that this guy has the character, the desire, and extremely excellent work ethics but he does not know how to play the office politics. When I called his boss, he has been warned not to be too honest and asking too much question. I realize this is the corporate way, what matters is politics. It is so much different than the bible.
As ICF leader, we have to make sure that we are upholding God’s standard not somebody else’s. Leaders should be acknowledged because of his character, competence, and content. His character should be worthy to be imitated by his disciples. His performance should be measured and reveal his competence. Finally, he should have good understanding on fundamental biblical principal.
Culture of Excellence and Biblical Leadership
There are three behaviors that could infect leaders that so destructive God called them sins. They are laziness, immorality, and prideful. Proverbs 12 even says that lazy people shall be put into forced labor, while diligent one should rule. Proverbs 22 also warns people that make up excuses for not doing the work. Proverbs 10 says that we need to be prepared for the lean time and do not miss the harvest time. Lazy leader will withdraw when the crisis hit because he does not like to work hard.
Immorality or specifically sexual immorality is very damaging because it involves trust. People put their trust on their leader that under any circumstances the leaders will not do wrong. When the leader committed sexual immorality, it shows that the leader is willing to hurt the very people he loves for simple pleasure. How else this leader will treat his followers that he barely knows. The biblical answer to this is to flee. Do not try to face the sexual temptation head on, the bible tells us to run, flee as fast as we could.
Pride causes us not to submit to God and not to listen to the council of other believers. When the leader becomes prideful, God will remove the authority from them. As it is written in Ephesians 5:21, that we need to submit to one another in reference to Christ. If we are not prepared to submit to one another, then we are not prepared to lead.
ICF as a non-profit volunteer based organization forces its leader to sacrifice to the last breath. The leader without a lot of training in a very young age to manage time, finance, and organized a set of activities. All of these in-tangible activities have to bear tangible result in terms of changed lives in relatively short time of less than 2 years. On top of this, ICF leader is battling his own spiritual growth and maturity with minimum outside help. From our point of few, this is insanity, but this is exactly the environment God wants us to be trained. We learn how to lead by example in ICF. The follower will definitely work as much or less than the leader. The follower will not submit to leader if he is absolutely not above reproach. And the follower will not listen if their voices are not heard.
Culture of Individualism in Corporate World
In recent article in Harvard Business Review, more than 90% of fortune 500 companies do not have a clear definition of leadership. This confirmed my observation that the corporate world does not develop their employee let alone their next generation leadership. Most of their leaders typically developed themselves and by moving from one organization to another. Why is this?
I think it is the culture of individualism. In the work place, nobody really cares more about your future than yourself. Most people will not willing to sacrifice their future for somebody else’s. With this culture in mind, most companies do not need to develop their leadership. They expect their employees to develop themselves so they are can be considered for promotion. Instead they spend the resources to create opportunities for advancement, such as creating new business, implementing new technologies, etc.
With this culture in mind, you have to develop your leadership skills and traits outside the work place. From my observation, ICF provides the best training even compare to the military. In military the command and accountability measure have been set that the social / political aspect of organization is weak. (No wonder, they are struggling in the war on terror that requires them to convince the heart and mind.) The political organization ignores values and morality training. Only in ICF that touches training in relationships, values, morality, organization, spiritual, leadership, vocation, and fellowship or community.
ICF Ministry is Crucial but Not Enough
ICF ministry is crucial for preparing the next Indonesian Christian leaders. It provides the training ground for these young Christians to grow in knowledge, skills, and faith. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not enough. The history of ICF and Christianity in general is littered with stories of defeat. King Solomon that had enormous wisdom to choose the right actions still fell into sins. Because of these sins, there is no glory at the end of King Solomon’s life his legacy is a broken Israel kingdom.
This is the reason that events like Leaders Meeting and TPM are important. These events serve as warnings that not only the challenge is getting harder and harder but also the only thing that we have is our relationship with Christ. We cannot replace this hunger of submitting to Christ with anything else. If we place anything else, such as money, power, career, family, kids, above Christ we will lose ground.
Secondary to our relationship with our God, we need to realize that we are in the battle field against the principalities of this world. If our lives become complacent, it should serve as warning sign that we are disengaging from the battle and losing our battle. In managing project, I learn that you need to assign everyone project that stretches his capabilities. If the assignment is too easy, overtime he will become complacent and resist working hard. If the assignment is too hard, he will probably burn out, but he will learn a lot more from the experience. This lesson serves as a reminder for me to challenge myself and the people around me every day. Today, I want to challenge you guys as ICF leaders. Involves in project that will challenge you to cling on to God more and avoid taking project that will lead you away from Him.
Finally, I want to mention that we need to be careful of the leadership trap. Pride is the pitfall for me. A lot of leaders fall because of pride. I learn this lesson the hard way at work. I was disrespectful to one employee that has not been performing well. I was mistreating him because of my pride that told me I had the right because I performed much better than him. This leads to fire storm in my department because this guy has been working with the company for 40 years and had been helpful to a lot of people. He is not in poor condition that requires him to take a lot of rest. It was embarrassing experience to me.