Leading Yourself

This is an article from TheResurgence that I worked through with my accountability partner this week. It helped us have a great conversation about what was going on in our lives. We added another area: My relationship with God... which included things like time in the Word, prayer, scripture memory, and daily surrender. You can find the original post at: http://theresurgence.com/leading-yourself.

Leaders Lead Themselves. Leaders should spend 50% of their time leading themselves. So suggests Dee Hock, author of Birth of the Chaordic Age. When most leaders think of leadership, they think of downwardly leading those for whom they’re responsible. But you really lead upwardly (with those to whom you are responsible), horizontally (with those who are your peers), and, perhaps most importantly, inwardly (you lead yourself). If I am not able to lead myself, how can I lead others? Leadership has a great deal to do with modeling. So what is involved with leading yourself?

When I began to consider self-leadership, my mind raced back to a verse I memorized long ago from Song of Solomon 1:6, which says: “…they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!” A modern rendering of that might be: “They made me responsible for taking care of what belongs to others, but I have not taken care of what belongs to me.” I have not done a good job of managing, stewarding, and leading myself, yet I am tasked with trying to lead others.

Self-Management. The two key passages on leadership in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1) deal primarily with self-management or self-leadership as a prerequisite for leading others. Could it be that the reason so many leaders fail in upward, downward, or horizontal leadership is that they have not done a very good job of inward leading?

A Checklist For Self-Leading. Here are a few areas to consider that are consistent with 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 as you reflect on leading yourself.

1. My gifts. How am I doing at leading myself to know my gifts, stay within my limits, and develop those gifts to their highest, God-pleasing potential?
2. My character. How am I doing at leading myself to be a person of integrity who follows through on promises made and is a person that others can trust?
3. My purity. How am I doing at being careful of what my eyes see, my ears hear, and my mind thinks about? How are my relationships with members of the opposite sex? Do I have guidelines, safeguards, and appropriate and honest accountability?
4. My pride. How am I doing at keeping Christ at the center? Am I the hero of my own stories? Do the words I speak communicate an attitude of arrogance and superiority, or am I characterized by humility and teachability?
5. My pace. How am I doing at leading myself in the use of my time? Is my schedule writing checks my body can’t cash? Am I going at an unbalanced pace that is digging myself, and those whom I lead, an early grave? Do I have a biblical view of work and leisure, or am I a workaholic who gets a sense of self-worth based on my work?
6. My finances. How am I doing at leading myself in the money arena? Do I have healthy protection and checks and balances built-in regarding organizational funds that don’t belong to me? Are there healthy audits over all financial dealing with which I am associated? Do I resist the lusting and grabbing lifestyle of my culture, choosing instead to be content and satisfied with God’s provision? Or is my happiness at the door of the next purchase?
7. My anger. How am I doing at leading myself emotionally? Do I have a reputation for being a hothead and having a short fuse? Do I keep score regarding perceived slights, insults, and put-downs? Do resentment, bitterness, and lack of forgiveness characterize me? One survey I came across revealed that bitterness is the major cause of burnout for men between 38 and 50 years of age.

These are my key areas of “self-leadership.” What areas of self-leadership do you need to focus on?

Dave Kraft - Leadership Development Pastor at Mars Hill Church