What exactly does a "people leader" do?

I happened across something called the 'People Strengths Quiz' online. As the title implies, it's supposed to tell you about your biggest strength as a person. The possibilities were people pleaser, people leader, people guru, and people persuader.

This was a test I couldn't "psyche out" the way you can with some instruments like Myers-Briggs, where one can figure out what they're going for and, if you were so inclined, push the test toward the outcome you want. So, whatever the result of this simple instrument, I was going to be a bit surprised, I guess.

The test told me that I'm a "people leader." Fortunately for me, that's what the work I've been called to do entails.

But the result got me to thinking about leadership, my experiences with it, and my reflections on it.

Some people misunderstand leadership, I think. It's not about being the BMOC (or BWOC), the person who barks orders out to others.

A leader is, above all, a servant, who strives to help people move from today's point A to a better and preferred point B and beyond.

Leaders are also persuaders. Persuasion isn't manipulation from afar. It is, in fact, intensely personal and collaborative.

[Clockwise: Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln]

This is true even when the leader has coercive power over those being led. Years ago, I heard Pastor Bill Hybels tell the story of a new member of his church, a retired colonel. The colonel told Hybels that pastors' claims to be leaders were laughable. "When I gave an order," he told Hybels, "people did what I told them to do." Hybels answered, "That may be. But when people don't do what I tell them, I can't order them to get down and give me 150 pushups."

There's something to that, of course. But when I told the story to Curtis "Mike" Scaparrotti, now the commander of NATO forces and a son of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I formerly was pastor, he smiled and pointed out: "You still have to be able to persuade." (That's probably why Scap is a general!) He understands something I first heard said by Pastor John Maxwell about leadership: "First people have to buy into you. Then they will buy into where you want to lead them." Once trust is earned, leaders can be persuasive.

Another way of describing persuasion is teaching. Franklin Roosevelt said that one of the primary tasks of a president is to be a teacher. Presidents (and all leaders) have to take the information they have, distill it, weave it into a vision, and communicate it in accessible ways.

The most challenging lesson FDR had to teach the country during his presidency was about its need to prepare for the possibility of war in light of the rise of fascist Germany and Italy and Imperial Japan.

[Franklin Roosevelt]

This wasn't an easy lesson for the country to accept. After World War I, the country wanted "a return to normalcy" and isolationism was the rule of the day. Roosevelt slowly taught the country the need for preparedness. Miraculously, during this period, he convinced Congress and the country to adopt the Lend-Lease Program, which helped the British fend off a German invasion of their nation.

While the country's military preparedness wasn't where it needed to be when Japan attacked the country on December 7, 1941 and Germany quickly thereafter declared war on the United States, America's teaching president had moved the country closer to being ready for the fight than it would have been had he remained passive.

One of the things I learned from my student teaching experience and have continued to learn from my thirty-two years as an educator of all ages in the Church is that the teacher only has to be one lesson plan or two ahead of the students. Leaders have to try to think one to four steps ahead, far enough ahead to cast a vision, but not so far ahead as to lose people.

All of which means that leadership is a collaborative process. Leaders who don't vision with those they lead and leaders who don't recruit other leaders to help them implement that vision will soon find that they're leading nobody.

Finally, a "people leader" who wants to have a lasting positive impact on others really needs to be in constant touch with God. I think that's true whatever one's field. I try to begin my day five days a week in Quiet Time with God, seeking what God wants to show me, teach me, and call me to do and be that day by digging into His Word. I also pray for guidance. What I've learned is that when we rely on God, He helps us to do what we are incapable of doing in our own power.

I'm not sure I entirely understand or agree with the "people leader" categorization in this test, but it caused me to reflect a bit on my role as a leader in Christ's Church and, occasionally, in other contexts.

One thing I know for sure is that I've failed many times as a people leader. Some of my mistakes have cost me the trust of people I loved and trusted. I try to learn from my failures and mistakes, seeking God's forgiveness and help to do better tomorrow than I did today.

This lifestyle is what Martin Luther (a great leader) called "daily repentance and renewal," turning in trust to the God we meet in Jesus Christ in order to own our sins, receive God's forgiveness, and be reshaped by the Holy Spirit. It's a way of life that can help any of us: people pleasers, people gurus, people persuaders, or people leaders. And everybody else.

[Martin Luther making his defense before emperor and church officials at the Diet of Wurms]

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The 4 Hardest Jobs in the US

Most people have probably heard of or read work by Peter Drucker. Drucker, who died in 2005, was the most respected student and philosopher of leadership in his time. His book, Executive Leadership, was, for many years, the book that every leader in business, academia, social services, and the church had at least heard of, if not pored over.

That's why this citation of Drucker appearing at the beginning of an article on the secret pain of pastors struck me:

Peter Drucker, the late leadership guru, said that the four hardest jobs in America (and not necessarily in order, he added) are:

• The President of the United States

• A university president

• A CEO of a hospital and

• A pastor

Wow! Most pastors I know would neither complain nor brag about their work. It is, after all, a privilege to be called by God and the Church to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, to engage in the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and to be a servant/leader of some of God's people.

But no pastor will be surprised by Drucker's list either.

It doesn't surprise me not only because I am a pastor, but also because I've studied US presidents and the presidency my whole life. I've read biographies of most of the presidents, even of Chester Alan Arthur, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Warren G. Harding. What's amazing is how often I've been able to draw lessons on how to pastor (and how not to pastor) from reading and pondering these biographies. I believe that the arts and skills that make for being an effective president are exactly what is required of someone who would be an effective and faithful pastor.

The two big differences between pastors and presidents is that presidents have more worldly tools at their disposal and that the stakes for which pastors play are much greater than those for which presidents play. The worst a president can do is initiate a nuclear Armageddon resulting in the physical deaths of billions of people. Small potatoes! A pastor prays, works, visits, preaches, and teaches each day to so present the good news of Jesus Christ, introduce the possibility of faith in Christ to others, and so prevent an eternal Armageddon in the life of every person they meet. Pastors play for far higher, more enduring stakes than any president ever has or will.

But like presidents, pastors cannot (and should not) coerce people into supporting their initiatives. In the end, no one who truly leads can coerce engagement in the common mission of the entities they lead. Nor should they! All you have to do is look at North Korea, whose people live in constant terror for their lives, and see that dictatorship is not the same as leadership. For leaders of any kind, persuasion is the coin of the realm.

A few years ago, I was talking with General Curtis (Mike) Scaparrotti, a son of the congregation I serve. We were talking about leadership. He pointed out to me that even in the military, ordering people to do things will only go so far. In the end, even a general must help those he or she leads to understand the advantages of the directions in which they lead and the common and fulfilling roles each person can play in pursuing them. As Pastor John Maxwell rightly says, "First, people must buy into the leader. Then, they'll buy into where the leader wants to go."

Two of our greatest political and military leaders, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower, hated giving direct orders. This wasn't for lack of confidence. They weren't fearful for their positions. Nor did they doubt that they had the authority to give direct orders, which, of course, they occasionally did. But they preferred persuading and arguing logically to telling people what to do. People who are persuaded of the wisdom of a course of action don't need anyone telling them what to do! They'll follow that course because they themselves believe it's the right one.

The leadership of a pastor, of course, is almost entirely persuasive. We can't coerce people to believe in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior, attend worship, pray, share their faith, serve their neighbor in the Name of Christ, or accept the authority of God's Word over their lives. That's why pastors cheat: We pray.

Although I love it and count it a privilege, the job of pastor can be hard. (Although I have to say that working in a factory and some of the other jobs I've held were harder for me.) But, whatever its challenges, being a pastor is made significantly less difficult when pastors (and the congregations they serve) "take it to the Lord in prayer."