Spirituality and leadership: a life of service

The leadership contest between Tony Blair, the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom, who is stepping down after 10 years in office, and Gordon Brown, his Chancellor of Exchequer, has been headline news here in London. In fact headlines about leaders around the world seem to be big news recently.

Our leaders are important to us, because their decisions directly affect our lives, but have you ever thought of yourself as a leader? You are, you know, and your leadership decisions matter to you and to those around you.

Each of us in a small or large way is a leader through the tasks we do and the decisions we make. When that leadership starts from a spiritual basis, it has a totally different meaning and tone. Instead of relying on one’s personal will, one learns to lead by serving. I love what that great world leader Mahatma Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” All good leaders have taken the first step to be that change.

One of the dictionary definitions for leader is: “One who goes first.” A mother is a leader for a child. A father or mother could well be a leader for the family. A teacher is a leader in the class. Each day we make decisions that take the first step in any given situation. Also, when we think of a new way of doing something, at that moment we are being leaders by setting an example for someone else to follow. Perhaps we haven’t thought about this as being leadership, but it is.

If our leadership just rests on the force of our personality or connections, however, it can become quite burdensome and uninspired. That’s why putting leadership on a spiritual basis is so important. It ensures that we are striving to move things, people, situations, to a new place where God wants them to be. When I speak of God in this way, I’m thinking of God as Truth, as Love, as infinite divine Mind, with all its intelligence, rather than as a denominational entity.

A very important aspect of such leadership is obedience. Each day God calls us for a special task. To be able to recognize the call is to be in sync with infinite boundless Love, to be obedient to what Truth is telling us.

Moses is a good example of a leader who learned obedience to God. In fact Moses was a very reluctant leader who obeyed God, anyway. Moses speaks to all of us who feel we may be out of our depth when it comes to obeying God’s call.

Looking at Moses’ curriculum vitae for relevant experience with which to do the job God had for him, we don’t find very much. Even though he was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, that doesn’t necessarily mean he had a lot of executive talent. What we do know is that for a period he looked after his father-in-law’s sheep in the “backside of the desert” near Mount Horeb. Plenty of time spent with sheep doesn’t sound like much preparation for leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.

And taking his self-assessment at face value, he was a dull and uninspiring speaker, “slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” This is hardly the kind of person one would select to convince and inspire the Israelites to move.

On top of it all, Moses simply didn’t want the job. He begged God to send someone else: “O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.”

These aspects of Moses’ life speak to me, because they make the point that we’ll never know the power of infinite boundless Love while we stay within the limits of our own powers and competence, content in the shallow confines of the familiar. Experience shows that when we are willing to answer God’s call, He empowers us to carry out His will. As Moses proved, God’s power far exceeds our wildest dreams, but with it comes the demand that we use it in His service.

Moses again is relevant. His past, his circumstances, his lack of leadership experience, his attitude during his first encounter with God, were all stacked against him. He was out of his depth and struggling. But the story didn’t end there because the lesson in leadership that Moses’ life offers is first and foremost his obedience and willingness to do whatever it took to serve God.

To me, obedience—and especially obedience to God—is a powerful leadership quality. But again, I’m thinking of God as Truth, Love, Mind, not as the deity of a particular denomination.

Christ Jesus showed his disciples, including us, the ultimate in spiritual leadership—and obedience was also key to his relation to God. He said that to be a good leader, one needs to be the best servant. He led not only by example, but also by a wonderful metaphor where he actually washed each of the disciples’ feet, whether they appreciated his action or not.

He showed them that spiritual leadership is all about good foot washing! “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” is the way the New American Standard Bible puts it. Jesus led by serving alongside his followers. To me it shows that the secret to the best teamwork is to lead through example. To do things that others might shun. In Jesus’ time, washing feet was deemed to have been the lowliest of tasks, but he did it.

This is how Jesus instructed the disciples after washing their feet: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.”

It was his spirit of humility and service that made people want to follow him. The Apostle Paul sums it up best, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (New International Version).

Each one of us is called to be a leader, and at some time or other we will have to take the first step in whatever task has been assigned to us. The Bible gives us many good examples of the spiritual leadership qualities we all naturally express as the perfect reflection of God.

It is our total surrender to God’s will and to His power that gives us the strength we need to lead. I take such comfort from this passage in Philippians as a good place to keep our focus on tasks we are daily asked to do: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

Whenever or however we are asked to lead, we won’t be doing it on our own; the Christ, which is the divine influence ever present in our consciousness, is the activity of good that makes all things possible when we are willing and obedient.

Mary Baker Eddy, the woman who discovered Christian Science, dared to trust God and to take bold steps needed so she could share its healing message with the world. This required her to speak in public and ultimately to start a church, to found magazines and a world-class newspaper—all of which were unusual for a woman to do in her day. Her ability to lean on God, be safe, and thus be able to bless others was evident throughout her life.

In 1906, when Mrs. Eddy was in her late 80s, a newspaper circulation war between the Hearst and the Pulitzer newspapers resulted in her character being regularly defamed in the press for nearly a year.

She, her students, and her followers prayed diligently during this whole time, not only for her protection, but for the protection of her ideas so that the world would not be taken in by the lies being presented about her and Christian Science.

When a vicious lawsuit instigated by one of the papers, supposedly brought on her behalf, was finally dismissed in court, she responded with a gift to the whole world. She founded what became a Pulitzer-Prize-winning newspaper—The Christian Science Monitor—that would not stoop to the kind of yellow journalism that had tried to slander her. She said, “The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353 ).

With these as examples of leaders, we, too, can be obedient to God’s call and do our part as leaders each day. In this way, each of us can bless ourselves, our friends, families, and ultimately our neighbors around the world.

Bless:

Science and Health
454:17

King James Bible
Ex. 4:10 slow of
Ex. 4:13 O
Matt. 20:28
John 13:14, 15
I Cor. 11:1
Phil. 4:13