LEADERSHIP STYLES AND CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES 1

Leadership styles and Christian Principles

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Leadership styles and Christian Principles

Introduction

The book “Leadership Essentials” has devised four main models of explaining attributes

of good leaders. These models include shaping vision, the posture of a leader, multiplying

influence and defining character. The book has drawn inspiration from Biblical and Christian

perspective of leadership. Leaders are supposed to have a Christ-like character based on holiness,

habitual, and humbleness. The posture of a leader is supposed to be servant-like embracing

meekness, team-building and stewardship. Also, a leader should be visionary and focused on

building interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships. The shaping of a leader shows how

leaders should have fighting strengths, problem-solving capacities and robust decision-making

skills to overcome criticisms and discouragements. These leadership styles and approaches are

also supported by literature on leadership. Leadership literature reveals various leadership

theories that can be understood from these aspects of religious leadership.

The Character of a Leader

The religious leadership focuses on who a leader is rather than what constitutes a leader.

This is because; New Testament leadership reflects the character of the leader and shepherd of

the flock, Jesus Christ. In the Book of Timothy, Paul has provided qualifications and traits a

church leader (elder) should have. The leader should be holy like Jesus Christ. For this matter,

leaders should emulate the character of Jesus Christ. As a result, Christian leaders will develop

the habitual character after the Christ. Such a character results from rhythmic and habitual

experiences from Jesus Christ (Ogden & Meyer, 2009). The experiences are drawn from training

from the religious doctrine. A leader should be humble since humbleness and meekness of a
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leader is divine. In this case, leaders should not be arrogant and abusers of power. Rather, they

should use their power and authority properly without instigating fear, intimidation and coercion.

The Posture of a Leader

Leadership posture entails how leaders position themselves in front and other follow.

Based on Christian standards, leaders are supposed to position themselves as servant leaders.

Servant leadership is when a Christian leader effectively uses the power and influence to propel

the achievement of a common goal (Ogden & Meyer, 2009). The aspect of Jesus kneeling while

washing His disciples’ feet symbolizes quintessential model of servitude. Effective leadership

promote team-building where Christians should come together in love to accomplish the holy

goal of proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Through teamwork, leaders ensure stewardship of the

members and taking care of God’s creation. Leaders should pride in watching the members of

the team operating and contributing in accordance with the talents, gifts, personality and passions

given by God. Such an approach ensures the team members play their role in the project to

ensure the work is done on time (Ogden & Meyer, 2009).

The Vision of a Leader

Leaders should be visionary. A leader without a vision is taking his subjects to oblivion.

A leader for this matter has the ability to make people see what they would not have seen by

their own. A Christian leader should be compelling vision towards Christ that would lead them to

the Kingdom of God (Ogden & Meyer, 2009). However, as a leader, one should not go alone but

influence and inspire others for Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ. Leader’s vision must be

evoked with sense of urgency if massive population should be inspired and motivated to join the

mission that demands total commitment. As a religious leader, the most essential attribute is

struggling to get the magnetic nature of Christ. For this matter, Christian leaders must have a
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clear vision through faith in Jesus Christ to see the mysterious kingdom that despite being a

hidden reality is real more than empirical world. Without the vision of compelling Jesus Christ

and the sense of God’s Kingdom, Christians lack appropriate foundation for assisting others to

see (Ogden & Meyer, 2009). Therefore, leaders should have the ability to see, helping other

people to see and embracing the mission of God for humanity.

The Shaping of a Leader

Christian minister needs to be of good courage and truth to lead God’s flock to the

Promised Land. Shaping of a leader is a hard process where the leader becomes the center or the

target of criticism. This is because leadership is challenging. Leadership position comes with

attributed responsibilities such as decision-making, shouldering the welfare of the subjects and

problem-solving (Ogden & Meyer, 2009). Leadership is hard thus it requires grace of God and

patience to lead ungrateful people and superior wisdom to navigate challenges of different

perceptions and maturity. Taming temptation and overcoming them is part of leadership abilities.

Like Jesus’ temptations and His victorious outcome, Christian leaders are expected to patiently

endure the demands of individuals’ anticipations. Triumphing over criticisms is part of

leadership shaping in Christian leadership. For instance, Jesus was a true leader who was

wrongly accused of dining with sinners, glutton and drunkard but He never surrendered His

mission of Redemption. Leaders are public figures thus exposing them to sharp attacks. In

Christianity, God employs criticism to develop Christians’ generosity of spirit and power of

endurance. For example, Moses’ leadership was faced with ever-complaining followers who

preferred captivity than God’s freedom in the desert. However, despite all these challenges,

Moses defeated discouragements (Ogden & Meyer, 2009). Therefore, leadership should have the

power to endure and triumph over criticisms and discouragements.

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Academic Literature on Leadership

The leadership styles and approaches discussed in the book “Leadership Essentials”

written by Greg Ogden and Daniel Meyer supports the biblical or Christian principles of

leadership as discussed above (Ogden & Meyer, 2009). Besides, these leadership approaches

and styles are captured in the academic literature of leadership. Based on literature review,

several leadership theories and styles have incorporated religious and Christianity tenets.

According to Spears (2010), servant leadership theory importantly reflects the characters of Jesus

Christ as a religious leader. Servant leadership begins with one becoming a servant rather than a

boss. For this matter, a servant leader must have some specific character traits such as

humbleness, feeling to serve, humility and love. As depicted in the article Spears (2010), ten

characteristics of a servant leader include listening, empathy, healing, creating awareness,

persuasive, conceptualizing, forecasting/predicting, good steward, developing/empowering the

subjects and team-building. These character traits associated with servant leadership have their

roots in Christianity. Jesus as a leader was a down-to-earth man who served his subjects rather

than being served.

The posture of a leader as discussed in the book under Christian perspective can be

understood through academic literature of leadership. The aspect of a leader posture discussed in

the book can be equated to transformational leadership theory in the academic literature of

leadership. According to Birasnav, Rangnekar & Dalpati (2011), transformational leaders

motivates and empower their subjects to achieve organizational goals. These leaders focus on

developing effective organizational culture that is servant-oriented, promote team-building and

talent-nurturing. Ultimately, this promotes job satisfaction for the employees (Long, Yusof,

Kowang & Heng, 2014). Ogden & Meyer (2009) says that leaders should pride in watching the
LEADERSHIP STYLES AND CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES 6

members of the team operating and contributing in accordance with the talents, gifts, and

personality and passions given by God. The concept can be considered transformational

leadership theory that promotes individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation.

The visionary leadership style, an academic literature of leadership can be used to

investigate the concept of shaping vision from the book “Leadership Essentials.” Visionary

leadership approach influences the perception of leader’s effectiveness in his agenda. According

to Taylor, Cornelius & Colvin (2014), highly visionary and focused leaders have high

transformational effects and higher effectiveness. Based on the book, Christian leaders should be

compelling vision towards Christ that would lead them to the Kingdom of God (Ogden & Meyer,

2009). In the academic literature review, leaders should be visionary and goal-oriented. The

vision of the leader influences his focus and determination of achieving the vision and mission

statement regardless of the challenges (Groves, 2006). Leaders should develop resilience by

developing emotional stability and emotional intelligence like Jesus Christ. Triumphing over

criticisms is part of leadership shaping in Christian leadership. Similarly, in the world of business

and politics, developing a thin skin is an effective trait of a successful leader (Groves, 2006).

Conclusion

The main Christian models of developing good Christian leadership include shaping

vision, the posture of a leader, multiplying influence and defining character. The book has drawn

inspiration from Biblical and Christian perspective of leadership. These leadership styles and

approaches from the book are also supported by literature on leadership. Leadership literature

reveals various leadership theories that can be understood from these aspects of religious

leadership.
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References

Birasnav, M., Rangnekar, S., & Dalpati, A. (2011). Transformational leadership and human

capital benefits: The role of knowledge management. Leadership & Organization

Development Journal.

Groves, K. S. (2006). Leader emotional expressivity, visionary leadership, and organizational

change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.

Long, C. S., Yusof, W. M. M., Kowang, T. O., & Heng, L. H. (2014). The impact of

transformational leadership style on job satisfaction. World Applied Sciences Journal,

29(1), 117-124.

Ogden, G., & Meyer, D. (2009). Leadership essentials: Shaping vision, multiplying influence,

defining character. InterVarsity Press.

Spears, L. C. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring

leaders. The journal of virtues & leadership, 1(1), 25-30.

Taylor, C. M., Cornelius, C. J., & Colvin, K. (2014). Visionary leadership and its relationship to

organizational effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.