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When a leader walks into the room, a passion for truth had better enter with him.
The leader is rightly concerned with everything from strategy and vision to team-building, motivation, and delegation, but at the center of the true leader’s heart and mind you will find convictions that drive and determine everything else.
Convictional intelligence is the product of learning the Christian faith, diving deeply into biblical truth, and discovering how to think like a Christian.
the Christian leader is a devoted student and a lifelong learner.
If the story is not worthy of your own life and the lives of others, leave and find a cause worthy of your service.
The leader must articulate how he came to be a part of this story, how it came to possess him, and why he now gives himself to it.
That is the story of God’s determination to glorify himself by saving sinners through the atonement accomplished by his own Son. As Christ himself made clear, every word of Scripture serves to tell this story.
In its irreducible form, this story contains at least four major chapters or movements.
the first, Cr...
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the second movement, The Fall,
third movement, Redemption.
fourth movement, Consummation,
the story will survive us and that we are still a part of this story even after our death.
“We will do almost anything for our visions, except think about them.”
leaders have to think about them or leadership will never really happen.
Those who believe that our greatest fulfillment must be found in this life will shape their worldview accordingly, and that belief will drive many other beliefs and assumptions.
We form a worldview, and then the worldview forms us.
This task of bringing every thought captive to Christ requires more than haphazard Christian thinking, and is to be understood as the task of the church and not merely the concern of individual believers.
the development of a comprehensive Christian worldview will require the deepest theological reflection, the most consecrated application of scholarship, the most sensitive commitment to compassion, and the courage to face all questions without fear.
We have to be faithful in the discipleship of the mind before we can expect faithfulness and maturity in those we lead.
the leader must not only know what is right, do what is right, and lead in the direction that is right—he must also lead followers to embrace this same knowledge.
The organization, institution, or congregation you lead will never achieve anything great or worthy unless an alignment of worldview takes place, and the leader bears the responsibility to make that happen. Over time, those who share that worldview most fully will gravitate to the center of the organization’s leadership and energy. Those who share the worldview less fully will migrate to the periphery of the organization, and may even exit.
The effective leader changes the way followers think about the world.
Leaders need to possess and develop many qualities, but the one element that drives them to the front is passion. Without it, nothing important happens.
We know it when we see a leader who naturally draws others into the vortex of their leadership.
The passionate leader is driven by the knowledge that the right beliefs, aimed at the right opportunity, can lead to earth-shaking changes.
The most faithful and effective pastors are those who are driven by deep and energizing convictions.
With eternity hanging in the balance, they know what to do.
Our ultimate conviction is that everything we do is dignified and magnified by the fact that we were created for the glory of God.
When push comes to shove in leadership—and it will—the leader resets the equation by going back to the convictions and leaning into passion.
Careful attention to thinking is what first sets the leader apart.
we lead out of authenticity and the open acknowledgment that we are doing what all leaders must do—face the facts, lean into the truth, apply the right principles, acknowledge the alternatives, and, finally, make the right decision.
the leader must demand to know everything critical and essential to the organization, its tasks, its operating status, its finances, its policies, its history, and its opportunities.
The leader develops a disciplined mind, committed to Christian truth and guided by scriptural principles. The leader is committed to the development of a comprehensive worldview based in truth and to the consistent application of truth to decision making.
Oracles have to be infallible. Leaders only have to be right—
The leader who faces the facts, leans into truth, applies the right principles, and acknowledges the alternatives will then be ready to make the decision—the right decision.
The leader who wants to effect long-term, lasting, determinative change in an organization has to be its lead teacher, changing minds in order to transform the organization.
As Christian leaders we know that we will face nothing less than a divine judgment on our leadership.
First, the teacher loves those he will teach.
Second, Augustine taught that the teacher must love what he teaches.
we teach because we first love Christ, who first loved us.
the goal of teaching is to see every student instructed, delighted, and moved.
The most effective leaders are unstoppable teachers. They teach by word, example, and sheer force of passion.
Leaders are not satisfied until every individual understands the mission, embraces it, and brings others into it.
Within the church, leadership falls on those whose light shines with integrity and power.
The church is to live by God’s Word and the gospel in such a way that others are left scratching their heads, wondering how people could actually live like this.
This is the leader’s responsibility—to deal with himself.
At the very least, inconsistency in our lives gives license for others to nurture their own inconsistencies.
Leaders of character produce organizations of character because character, like conviction, is infectious.
Followers are drawn to those whose character attracts them as something they want for themselves.
