Is My Leadership Spiritual?
Ruth Haley Barton
July 1, 2006
Most Christian leaders sense that there should be something different about our leadership than what is offered in the secular marketplace, but we're not always sure what that is. Spiritual leadership emerges from the soul of us—that place where God's spirit and my spirit commune. This kind of leadership is not about roles and titles within organizational hierarchies; it has to do with our desire and ability to recognize and respond to the presence of God. It depends on our willingness to lead from a place of communion with him. Spiritual leadership flows from the leader seeking after God through spiritual disciplines. Solitude and silence are two such disciplines that enable us to experience a place of authenticity and invite God to meet us. In them, we are rescued from relentless human striving so that we can experience the life of the Spirit. We give up control and allow God to be God in our lives rather than being a thought in our heads or an illustration in a sermon. We listen for the still, small voice of God telling us who we really are so that we are not enslaved by the demands and expectations of life in leadership. There can be no compromise. Those who look to us for leadership need us to be spiritual seekers. They need us to keep searching for the bread of life that feeds our souls so that we can guide them to places of sustenance. Rather than offering the cold stone of past devotionals, regurgitated apologetics, or someone else's musings, we must offer bread that is warm from the oven of our own intimacy with God. The choice to lead from the soul is a vulnerable approach. It means I am leading from a tender place where I do not have all the answers. It is radical because the wisdom of God is foolishness to this ...
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