Building Strong Leaders Series

Deliberate Leadership

Key Thought: Effective leaders are deliberate and not reactive.

Introduction

Strong leaders are the ones who respond quickly in an emergency. Strong leaders are the ones who take action when everyone else is stuck. Strong leaders take control and move people and organizations forward. God has wired the personalities of leaders to respond, to act and to control. These traits are necessary in every leader. Yet these same traits can be a leaders greatest weakness. There are times when quick action is required yet every action of a leader must be deliberate and not a reaction to a circumstance or person. Even situations that require quick action must be deliberate and not mere reactions.

Biblical Basis 

Saul, the first king of Israel, was chosen and anointed by God to lead God's people. Saul demonstrated effective leadership at the beginning of his reign (1 Samuel 11:1-11). He was assertive and acted immediately and lead God's people to victory. Yet this same assertiveness led to Saul's downfall as an effective leader. In 1 Samuel 13 verses 5-14 Saul is again facing a crisis that requires a response. Saul gathers the men with him. The men were fearful of the enemy that was coming to attack them. Saul had been told by the prophet Samuel to wait for seven days so Samuel could come and offering a sacrifice to the Lord before the battle. The seventh day arrived but Samuel had not come. Saul decided to take matters into his own hands and offered the sacrifice himself something he was not permitted to do. As soon as he finished offering the sacrifice Samuel came. When asked by Samuel why he offered the sacrifice Saul replied, "I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering" (verse 12). Samuel then announced that if Saul had waited then God would have established his leadership for all time but since he did not wait but reacted his leadership would be taken from him. Apparently God was going to do something through this specific circumstance that would have worked both in Saul and in the people that would have establish Saul as an effective leader. Instead Saul reacted and was never an effective leader afterwards. It was Saul's personality trait of feeling compelled to react that led to him losing his leadership.

Jesus, the perfect model of a leader, never reacted no matter what the circumstances were or what people said to him or about him. Jesus acted deliberately at the time of his own choosing. In John chapter 7 verse 1-8 Jesus' brothers were taunting and mocking him. It was the Feast of Tabernacles and  they told him to go public to the feast if he really was who he said he was. They said to Jesus "Go show yourself to the world." Jesus' response is key. Jesus said, "My time is not yet here; for you any time will do (verse 6). Jesus was deliberate. Jesus only acted in ways that would advance his purpose and plan. Jesus resisted reacting to situations and people when to do so would not advance His purpose. Everything Jesus did unfolded in a manner and in a time of his choosing to accomplish His purpose.

Dangers of Reacting

A leader who reacts to situations usually does so because of emotional immaturity or a personality defect in themselves. Caring what people think or say will also lead a leader to react and not be deliberate. Here are some of the consequences of reacting without deliberation.

    1. We lose focus on our ultimate goal and purpose.

    2. We allow circumstances and people to hijack our direction. 

    3. We waste opportunities to use the circumstance or crisis to actually further our ultimate goal. We fail to ask, 'how can this situation or this person's reaction be a gift from God to advance what God has called me to do.'

    4. We fail to develop and use the resources around us in the form of other leaders to actually strengthen our ministry. 

Strategy for Becoming a Deliberate Leader

The first step is to seek to isolate any personality or emotional issues within you that are leading you to take an action at the time you are taking it. Ask yourself: What am I feeling? - anger; threatened; jealousy; disappointed etc. The key is not to be perfect but rather to know yourself and see what is influencing your reaction.

The second step is to play the movie forward. Seek to play out what will happen if you respond in a certain way at a certain time. Ask yourself some questions: How can this be used to advance my ministry purpose? Five years from now what would this look like (get a longer perspective before you act)? Is now the time to address this? Have I prayed through before I respond? Have I consulted one person outside of the situation for their perspective? What is Jesus saying to me?

Implementation Tool

Here is a simple tool that someone developed to help leaders take action. It has three steps, ready - aim and fire. It is a helpful tool to run through before you act.

Ready: Is now the time to act? Is everything that I need to be effective in place? Issues such as resources needed both financial and personnel may come in here. Is this the time of my choosing?

Aim: Is how I am planning to act going to advance the goal or distract from the goal? As has been said if you are hunting deer you can not be shooting at rabbits. If you do you will never see a deer.

Fire: Once everything is ready and your focus is clear then take the step in faith and act decisively and confidently without hesitation.

I believe that all of us as leaders can become deliberate in how we act and avoid the dangers of merely reacting. 

Challenge

The biggest mistakes I have made as a leader have come when I have reacted to circumstances and people. The temptation to react is great. Our anger, our fears, and our insecurities and even our lack of patience and faith at times compel us to react rather than respond with deliberation. When we react we cease being effective leaders. Jesus our ever deliberate leader has better things for us. He desires to make us into effective leaders who are deliberate in all their actions and responses.