Leadership and Service

Zig Ziglar, the great motivator, said, “You can best achieve what you want in life if you are servant enough to help others achieve what they want in life.” Simply stated, if we want to become King of all, we must first become servant of all.
 
Servant-hood leadership is little understood and very rarely the model for our lives. We need to understand that leadership and service are indispensable to each other. Sometimes, people start out as leaders and end up becoming bosses. There is a difference is leadership and boss-hood. H. Gordon Selfridge gave the following differences:
The boss drives his men; the leader coaches them.
The boss depends on authority; the leader on goodwill.
The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.
The boss says, “I”; the leader says “we”.
The boss knows how it’s done; the leader shows how it’s done.
The boss says “go”; the leader says “let’s go.”
There are four keys to Servant-hood Leadership

I. VISION
The good book says where there is no vision, the people perish. If any group, whether business, church or government, is under a leader with no vision, the result is definitely not good. There is disorder, rebellion, chaos and maybe even anarchy. There are some visionary leaders down through history that I really admire. One is Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune Cookman University in Daytona, Fl. Another is Harriet Tubman who had the tenacity and courage to lead people out of slavery to freedom at great danger to herself..
 
Four vision axioms to remember are:
1. Nothing happens to us by accident; all reversals are God-given challenges.
2. Never sidestep challenges.
3. Love people, use things. Don’t reverse this order.
4. Value both leisure and labor. Leisure will give your life pacing. Labor will make you productive.
 
II. DECISION
In a poem entitled “The road Not Taken”, Robert Frost said, “Two Roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”. Sometimes, it’s a decision that makes all the difference in the world. . Sometimes we make decisions that are not always right. Sometimes it’s a matter of timing.
 
The wrong decision at the wrong time = DISASTER.
The wrong decision at the right time = MISTAKE.
The right decision at the wrong time = REJECTION.
The right decision at the right time = SUCCESS.
 
A vision is nothing until we DECIDE to do something about it.
 
III. NETWORKING
The leader of large Christian organization, R. C. Sproul, said, “I hope when I die there will be at least five of my friends who will be able to sit through my funeral without looking at their watches.” A Good example of networking is Jesus Christ. Whether you are Jewish, Christian, Moslem, you have to acknowledge that He is the best example of servant hood leadership. He trained a network of twelve men who carried on the work when He was gone. They in turn trained others. The impact of that networking is felt today, One leader and twelve followers turned the world upside down. Networking multiplies power.