I have privilege of coaching some really outstanding leaders. It’s a wonderful experience for me to come alongside them to help increase their fruitfulness, deepen their capacity, and wrestle with them over the tough issues they face as they move forward.
I recently found myself wondering what they all had in common, so I made a list of some of these leaders. Their personalities and styles are all different, but here are five things I noticed that they all have in common. There might be more, but these common threads are the ones that stood out to me.
- Principle-based: They all have a framework from which they were working that was clear to them.
- Focused: They focus in on a few important key issues, not scattering their attention over too many things.
- Process leadership: They practice what I call “process leadership”: leading change in a way that involves listening, engaging other people in the process, and gaining ownership.
- People skills: They handle different people with sensitivity and emotional intelligence.
- Persistence: They demonstrate “grit”– the ability to stay with something over the long haul without losing focus.
Of course, this list is in addition to them all being godly people. Of course, being godly is no guarantee of being a good leader. There are plenty of godly people who are totally inept leaders. Spirituality in and of itself doesn’t lead to ministry effectiveness. The reverse is also true: just because you’re an effective leader doesn’t mean you’re godly. For the ministry leader, you need both.