The very changes that the tempo of the time forces upon us bring out another trait of character that marks the badge of leadership. This is the ability to avoid running ahead of the parade. It is an easy temptation to some to see that everything needs to change and to demand change in everything we see. For such a one, life becomes one continuous battle with the existing order. Those with such an outlook on life will see much of the world because they will receive many "calls" and will move from conference to conference. Such may gender good ideas but impatience and criticism usually nullify them. Such never learn that to be two blocks ahead of the parade is to be out of it just as much as to be five blocks behind it. Such never realize that a leader can travel no faster than he can create public sentiment to support him. Such go through life observing the fallacies, the follies, and the mistakes of others and dissipating all their energies in attempting to change them. It is a real art for a leader to discover that narrow line between construction and destruction. A leader will cherish the past for the good that it has bequeathed us while exploring the future for newer methods, newer treasures, newer gold. A leader recognizes the difference between objectives and methods. Objectives always remain the same while methods are constantly subject to change.
Field Marshal Montgomery in his memoirs, recently published, stated that a German general classified all his officers into groups with four qualifications. These four qualifications were the lazy, the ambitious, the brilliant, and the stupid. He stated that all the officers in the army possessed at least two of these qualifications. He classified officers accordingly. He stated that there was a place for the lazy and stupid. They could be used to the advantage of the army. The ambitious and the brilliant made staff officers and should be so assigned. The lazy and brilliant, however, ranked highest in his estimation and ultimately became commanding officers. The reasons that he gave interested me. He said this group alone possessed the imagination to do big things and had the nerve to carry out their plans. His further comment was that the ambitious and the stupid must be separated from the army at once, for they would do only harm.
Leadership in the cause of God is not parallel, but human nature is much the same in all walks of life.
There is a further trait of character that I count most important in leadership. It is the rare ability to sift the important from the unimportant. There will be a tendency as we leave these halls and return to our districts, to concentrate on a particular method to advance the work of God and bring souls into His eternal kingdom, losing sight of the total picture and confusing the important and the unimportant.
Some of us will attempt to theologize people into heaven. Our logic will be linked and strong. Our array of supporting texts will be irrefutable. Our understanding of the intricacies of salvation and of the techniques of eternal life and of certain meaning of all the obscure symbols and double-meaning texts will be most impressive. It will appear that an All-wise God has revealed to us alone the certain sequence of His mind. People will be impressed, but will they be saved? Some of us will attempt, as we return to our districts, to negate people to glory and the eternal ecstacies of heaven. We will see great virtue in self-denial, and conclude that by not doing certain things the world will certainly be saved and the "saints" rewarded. We will see many things that cannot be done and much to negate. We will be appalled at the things seemingly righteous people are doing. Seeing these things will be conclusive proof of our own virtue and of the thinness of the holy veneer of the church. We will find followers who will find comfort in lying on their own particular bed of spikes. I fully grant that there are many things that Christians should not do, but I am still reminded that salvation is not obtained by negations.
Others of us will return to our districts and attempt to frighten people into heaven. Remember, however, that today's society does not stay frightened very long.
Some of us will attempt to shame and embarrass people into Paradise. The exposing of the evils of our lives, of our perfidy and our vanity, of our greed, to the awful glare of publicity; the holding of our defects up to the spotlight of public disapproval; public humiliation, should surely chase a few recalcitrants through the shining portals of the New Jerusalem —and some tender souls will doubtless respond.
Some of us will return to our districts and become so confused by campaigns and so enmeshed in the machinery of the church, and so involved in form letters and reports, and so engrossed in counting the sheep faithfully in the fold and weighing their wool, that sinners will be forgotten and the stragglers on the mountainside and the frolicking lambs that lingered outside the door of the fold will be quite overlooked.
Some, and I hope most of us, will see all of these varying methods I have alluded to as but part of the picture, and will not allow any one of them to become the whole picture. Some will see that there is right in each of these approaches, only as it is related to the total. Some will discover the really important. Some will discover that people cannot be frightened into heaven, and that they cannot be shamed into heaven, nor can they be embarrassed nor theologized, nor reasoned, nor commanded, nor coerced, nor negated into heaven. They can only be loved into Paradise! This is truly God's own method. Leaders will see all of these methods but will see mostly the method the Master used long ago when He looked on the multitude and was moved with compassion and loved them, with all their faults and shortcomings, right into the kingdom of God. Leaders will love people right over their sins into paths of rectitude and devotion and dedication to God and to His work. So much for qualities of leadership. Honesty compels me to tell you that I have not named all the qualities, nor necessarily given the most important ones.
I must also remind you that there are prices to pay for leadership. There are many people who may develop in their lives all the qualifications required for leadership, who may still be reluctant to pay the price of leadership. That there is a price, no leader will deny.
A gentleman of long ago put it in a pointed way when he said, "The pinnacle of fame is hard to sit on."
The first price of leadership I suggest to you must be paid in the sacrifice of intimate friends. There is that about leadership which sets one apart from the crowd and requires that one walk alone. It requires bravery, daring, and courage to step out of the crowd and walk alone. A leader must be friendly with all, but one of the first prices that is paid is the sacrifice of intimate friends. Intimacy begets partiality, and partiality disqualifies one from leadership. A leader has many friends but few intimates, and none of these within the group to which he gives leadership. There can be no inside tracks.
The second price that must be paid for leadership is the willingness to accept extraordinary amounts of criticism without rancor or rebuke or revenge. An organization becomes the lengthening shadow of a leader, and this is a fearful responsibility. To accept the responsibility of giving leadership, direction, purpose, to a religious movement, carries with it a corollary responsibility for the success or the failure of the project. Leadership implies authority, and authority can never be divorced from responsibility. Therefore, a leader must be willing to accept the responsibility for the outcome of the programs that he sponsors, and in which he gives leadership. Inevitably this carries with it the penalty of criticism, the price of being misunderstood, the premium of being misrepresented. Too frequently the leader's best intentions are misconstrued, his words misquoted, and his ideas ridiculed. A leader must be inured to much of this, and frequently he must remain silent when criticized, for frequently to give complete explanation of what is done, and why, would be grossly unfair to those with whom a leader must deal. The alternate is to accept the responsibility and the criticism without answer in the certainty that the lengthening shadows of history justify the decision made. This is not easy. Anyone not willing to pay this price is automatically disqualified from leadership. As President Truman so succinctly put it, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
A third, and very important price that must be paid for leadership is the willingness to count influence as more important than rights! There are many things you, as a leader, have a right to do, if the exercise of that right causes others to stumble and lose their way, at that point that right is forfeited. This finds application in many instances—in the field of recreation, amusement, the choice of homes, cars, and clothes, of company and of diet. We are a small and humble people. We do not always have to stay small, but we do have to stay humble. A recognition of this fact forbids ostentation and display. A Seventh-day Adventist minister has a right to have as ornate and elaborate a house, and as gaudy a car as he can afford, but when he accepts the principle that the influence is more important than the right, that modifies and limits the ornateness of the home and the amount that can be properly spent on cars without jeopardizing his influence among the members of the church.
This is one of the severest prices of leadership, and one frequently we are most reluctant to pay. One has a perfect right to mow the lawn in shorts, and might be perfectly understood by the neighbors, but if it is misunderstood by the church, that right ceases to exist.
One of the most controversial matters discussed by clergy and laity alike is the matter of diet. There are those within our fold who if they had to choose between breaking the Ten Commandments and eating a piece of meat would choose to break the commandments and remain vegetarians. There are others who feel equally strongly in the other direction—and who have not accepted any limitations on their diet, or at least but few.
There are some admonitions given us by the Spirit of Prophecy that I believe we would do well to heed, but it is not my purpose to touch on the righteousness or villainy of a dietary program. I believe the price of leadership requires that we rise above the matter of our rights and settle this on the basis of our influence. If the exercise of my rights causes another to stumble and lose his way, at that point my right as a leader ceases to exist.
The responsibility of leadership is well stated by the apostle Paul in Romans 14, verses 7 and 13: "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." It is time we educate our believers to understand what is good for them. It is time we rose above the debate as to what we should and shouldn't eat. "But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died" (Rom. 14: 15).
Let us make our own decision not on the basis of our rights or our appetites, but on the basis of our influence. Anyone who is unwilling to do so, to that extent disqualifies himself for leadership. I close with a statement on the rewards of leadership. There are many rewards, quite unrelated to the dollar extra that may come in the pay check at the end of the week. God holds us accountable, not just for what we do, but for what we have the capacity to do. This is clearly taught in the parable of the Talents. Those who utilize their talents to the utmost find their rewards in satisfactions that are not denominated in dollars, and that do not adapt themselves to easy description. It is obviously rewarding to see the fruitage of one's thinking, one's devising, and one's planning carried out in the work of the church. But the greatest reward of talents used unselfishly and to the maximum will be the thrill of listening to the words: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34).
