These days, being a leader is complex. One of the greatest challenges is achieving a balance between being a friend and confidant to those we lead while also maintaining our role as effective leaders.
For a quick fix, when no one seems to be listening and life appears over whelming, we can, of course, go to the dogs! Seriously. A dog will give us all the love, attention, and respect we need. It's usually quite easy to be "top dog" to a dog! But the question is, Do we as leaders inspire respect in dogs or in people by making an admirable impression on them, by inspiring fear, or through winning their trust?
Teachers must inspire respect. One of my daughters is an English teacher. She recently started working with inner city, public school teenagers. This is a much tougher group to handle than the students at the Christian school at which she had been teaching. Some of these teenagers were in gangs or were aspiring to gang life. They challenged her constantly, even using profanity to her face. However, she told me that what seemed to help her the most in bonding with this group of "God's other children," as she calls them, was looking directly into each set of eyes and talking to each individual by name.
Many of the kids in this particular group feel like a mere number, valueless in themselves. They are used to obeying authority if and when they do out of the fear of punishment rather than out of true respect, because they are used to adults who focus on trying to make them into what these adults believe these young people should be, rather than guiding them while respecting them as individuals. They have been overpowered, rather than empowered, by the authority figures of their lives.
It is the privilege and the duty of ministers to look to God to find the ultimate patterns for leadership, and for inspiring respect in those they lead. Though a complete understanding of God is unfathomable to us as humans, the Bible does give us two correlating portrayals of God through the Old and the New Testaments.
In the Old Testament God is pictured more in terms of power. His awesomeness is emphasized and it inspires a respect growing out of awe for God. When it comes to this side of God, we cannot come near to equaling the God of the Old Testament, and I would suggest that attempting to do so is, to say the least, improper.
Significantly, in the New Testament, Jesus was the One who came as "the Second Adam." It was Jesus who lived the life of a man. Yet there was unequaled power in Him. He gave us the ultimate pattern for leading people. The way He treated people inspired both love and respect in them.
How did Jesus deal with people?
- He fed them (Mark 6:35-44; 8:1 -9).
- He healed them (Matt. 8:1-4; 9:18-22; Mark 10:46-56).
- He comforted them (Matt. 6:25- 34; 11:28-30; John 11:25; 14:1-4).
- He cared about them unselfishly (Matt. 5:43-48; Mark 12:28-31).
- Jesus didn't become frustrated or aggravated with them, even the most difficult; He didn't try to anxiously control them. They made their own daily choices; they made their own mistakes (Matt. 26:14-16; Mark 14:66-72).
And it was in multitudes that people came to Him (Matt. 4:25-30; Mark 4:1, 2; Luke 9:10,11). They asked His advice, and the wisdom of Jesus' advice had a profound effect on them because they came seeking, and He focused on them and answered their questions.
Furthermore, though Jesus was commanding and authoritative, He was not merely kind; He was tender. His touch saved lives because in it was the ultimate strength of an underlying integrity. He was "for real," and people could feel it. They trusted Him, and so they respected Him.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus told His disciples (John 14:6). As way, truth, and life, the power of God in Jesus captivated people. However, they became followers because Jesus felt not acted "as if," but felt esteem for other people. He regarded them as individuals created with choice by God, and in turn they became devoted to Him.
It seems to me that as leaders we need to think of Jesus and learn to "let go." Incessant, meticulous, control of how other people feel and think and act can only exhaust us and them. As it dawns on us that the God who came as the paradigm for humans, holds us in high esteem, we come to esteem our selves as children of God, and then in turn we feel true esteem (respect) for others. With the power and pattern of God as our source of strength, we can relax, we can be calm, and, never com promising our integrity, treat those around us with esteem. Rather than trying to demand respect or merely acting like leaders, we can then be leaders.
How do we gain people's respect: by making a good impression, through kindling fear, or by inspiring trust?
