Leadership Definitions

RELP 255 Church Leadership & Administration

What is leadership?
 “Leadership is the lifting of a man's vision to
higher sights, the raising of a man's
performance to a higher standard, the
building of a man's personality beyond its
normal limitations.”—Drucker, The Practice
of Management, pp. 159, 160.
 A leader is “one who guides and develops the
activities of others and seeks to provide
continual training and direction.”—Engstrom,
The Making of a Christian Leader, p. 15.
 “What is Christian leadership? It is leadership
motivated by love and given over to service. It
is leadership that has been subjected to the
control of Christ and his example.”—
Engstrom and Dayton, The Art of
Management for Christian Leaders, p. 27.
 Leadership is “the process of influencing the
activities of an organized group toward goal
achievement.”—Roach and Behling, quoted in
Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, 2nd
Edition, Prentice Hall, p. 3.
 “The leader is the person who helps
persons to the discovery and fulfillment
of life's four foundational searches.
Persons follow a particular leader because of
their sense that with this person they will
discover fulfillment of their search for
individuality, community, meaning, and
hope.”
 —Callahan, Effective Church Leadership,
p. 66.
Leadership defined
 There are almost as many different
definitions of leadership as there are people
who have tried to define it
Ways to conceptualize leadership
 Focus on the group process
 Personality perspective
 Act or behavior
 Power relationship
 Transformational process
 Skills perspective
Definition and Components
 Following components can be indentified:
 Leadership is a process
 Leadership involves influence
 Leadership occurs in a group context
 Leadership involves goal attainment
 Leadership is a relationship
 Leadership is a process whereby an individual
influences a group of individuals to achieve a
common goal
Key leadership functions
 What are the key functions of leadership?
 First: Clarify and maintain the vision Prov
29:18
 What is God’s will for the world?
 What is God doing with His global family and
where is He leading it?
 What does it mean that God’s will for all to be
saved and come to the knowledge of truth?
 What aspects of the larger vision is ours to
pursue?
 What do we do in our time and place?
 How do we proceed?
 Second: affirm the values of the organization
 It is specially significant for church
leadership to affirm the values of the church:
love, justice, truth and peace
 Third: symbolize the standards and
expectations of the organization
 The pastor and the elected leaders of the
congregation symbolize the church
 Four: maintenance of the organization,
seeing that it is provided for
 Overall responsibility for the life of the
congregation
 Fifth: service to the organization
 The leader who is legitimate, powerful, and
great is first and last a servant
 Sixth: institution’s renewal, an ongoing
function in organizations of all kind
 To live is to change; to live well is to change
often—not merely for the sake of change, but
for the sake of the mission
Practices of exemplary leadership
 Model the Way
 Inspire a shared vision
 Challenge the process
 Enable others to act
 Encourage the heart