Tim Seaton

Jesus is our perfect leader we can rely on whenever we need Him. He came to the earth and died for us, then rose again just to save us. That was His mission and reason for being on the earth.  He was God’s son and He wants us to come to Heaven and believe in Him. He wants us to lead a life as close to what He lived as we can, even though nobody other than He ever was or will be perfect. He is the perfect example of a good leader because of what He accomplished and what He did while He was here on earth.

Leadership is when you are in a position to set the example for others or the ability to lead others. Leaders should have a selfless heart that is willing to put their needs after the needs of the people they are leading. Jordan French of BNB Shield said, “Leadership is serving the people that work for you by giving them the tools they need to succeed. Your workers should be looking forward to the customer and not backwards, over their shoulders, at you. It also means genuine praise for what goes well and leading by taking responsibility early and immediately if things go bad.” He is talking about the world’s version of a good leader, and he has some good points.  However, to find the very best example of a leader, we should look to Jesus as our example.  We have the opportunity to be able to influence people in a good way and show them the love and kindness of Jesus Christ He showed us before He was on earth, while He was on earth, and still today.

A good leader always has a mission or purpose in mind and is focused on accomplishing it.  Jesus is a great example of this. He was absolutely focused on His one mission: to save the world and nothing else. He exhibited many excellent leadership qualities during His time on earth.

One characteristic of excellent leadership is being humble. A good leader is never overly confident in his abilities. He encourages others to keep going when there are tough times, and he never boasts when he does better than everyone else. He doesn’t build himself up and tear others down to make him look better or to raise himself to glory. Instead, he lower himself to enable him to help others and show them the grace of God. Jesus demonstrates grace and humility by coming to the earth and dying for us in our place. Leaders, like Jesus, don’t build themselves in false ways. Instead, they do it through actions they perform and words they say.

Another leadership characteristic is being authoritative. When you assert power over others, it doesn’t have to be a dictatorship. It can be a time like Jesus’ where He ruled His followers not by fear, but by respect for Him and His teachings. One time, He turned money tables over that were in the temple because it was wrong to have them in there. Multiple times, He drove the demons out of people with His authority over the heavens and the earth. He demonstrated authority by doing these and many more things that showed his authority over humans and Satan.  Like Jesus, great leaders act with an understanding that they have authority.

Another example of Jesus being a leader is how He showed great self-restraint even when it was incredibly difficult because of His needs and desires. When He went into the wilderness, He was able to resist Satan by telling him scripture and not falling into the temptations any other man probably would have fallen into. While on the earth, He faced countless more tough things, yet He faced them all in perfection. While we might not be perfect like Jesus, our goal should be to try to show this same kind of self-restraint. Jesus was definitely a good leader. He taught others the ways they should live through His example. Demonstrating  the right thing to do is a characteristic of leadership. He showed self-restraint when He was tempted to do the wrong thing, choosing what was right. Showing this restraint is leadership because it is showing one can be trusted to make the right decisions when needed.

A fourth quality is His ability to connect with His followers and build strong relationships. He did this by talking to His disciples away from everybody else, and then talking to everyone else in sermons. He built relationships by interacting with anybody who wanted to hear the gospel and then explaining the gospel to them. Communicating with the people under you is a big part of being an effective leader people respect. Some great examples of connecting and with people is Jesus’ miracles. Some Jesus performed were feeding the 5,000 on the mountain, raising Lazarus from the dead, making the crippled walk again and the blind see. He told the disciples to fish off the other side of the boat where they had been fishing all day, and they caught more than their boats could hold. He healed people by just touching them. He calmed raging storms in the middle of the sea. But maybe the biggest miracle of all was raising Himself from the dead after three days. When He was about to leave the earth, He gave the disciples instructions for when He ascended to heaven, on which they followed through because He was their leader and friend and they respected Him. It shows how much of an impact Jesus really had on people throughout His time on earth, even though He was an enemy of the Romans. When the people saw He actually cared for him, he was immediately looked at and seen as a leader because of His relationship with them. He was able to influence people to follow him and to be more Christ-like by interacting and communicating with His followers.

Another characteristic of being a leader is serving others in whatever ways you can. As a leader, you cannot expect to be able to sit there and have them do all the work for you. Leaders should lead by example, not by telling people what to do. When you serve others, you are letting them know they are important to the cause they are helping. Jesus dedicated His entire life to being a servant to His followers. One passage that ties into being a leader and serving others is Luke 22:24-27: “A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.’” Jesus lived out this truth. When you are a servant, you have the opportunity to see how a leader really can affect you. If you then rise to a leadership position, then you are able to use what you saw when you were a servant to being a leader.

Another characteristic of strong leaders is the ability to create teams and figure out how people work together. Jesus gathered the disciples as His followers. They left everything behind and became His faithful followers. People listened to Him and believed in Him in part due to His dedicated followers. He understood each disciple had strengths and weaknesses and was able to work with them anyway. As a leader, you need to be able to communicate well with people who are under you as well as those who are above you. If you don’t then your groups could be unbalanced and unhelpful to each other, and therefore, result in  an ineffective team. Jesus was great at this.  He chose good people who were willing to leave behind their lives and follow Him because of His ability to pull them together.  As a leader today, this same skill of being able to put together a good team is still of utmost importance.

Another important characteristic of an outstanding leader is the ability to share what you believe in and inspire others to believe in the same thing. When you can speak with clarity to other people you are leading, then they are going to trust you more and relate to you. He showed and inspired His disciples to follow His message. If you aren’t able to communicate and inspire, then people may not be willing to follow your lead.

A final characteristic of a leader Jesus demonstrated so perfectly is being able to realize a higher authority and recognizing who it is. Jesus prayed daily to God, even though in heaven they are equal. He did this out of respect to God. He also prayed to God on the cross when He was about to die asking God to spare Him, but He knew He had to go through with it if He was going to save humans. As a leader today, we need to be able to realize we have a higher authority in teachers, parents, and especially in God. If we recognize that, then we can finally realize we aren’t the ruler of the world, even when we think our ideas are better than what others have. In honoring a higher authority, we are saying we understand the value of leadership, authority, humility, and demonstrate we are willing to listen to others.

Following Jesus’ leadership skills can apply to us today even though many good leaders were around before we were alive. Jesus was alive 2,000 years ago, yet he still influences people today in a positive way. This supports the fact He was a good leader. If He could do this, then shouldn’t we strive to do the same? Jesus still has great influence in our world and would be considered a leader still, 2,000 years after He walked on the earth. This proves just how effective He was as a leader.

In conclusion, I want to make sure people are aware being a good leader, or a bad one, can affect people’s lives immensely. We have the ability to make purposeful decisions about how we will lead. If you choose to be a good one, then you will be able to know you have possibly helped lives turn for the better. Follow Jesus’ example of a good leader. When we are leading in this way, we are showing God’s love to everyone under us or above us and is learning from us how to be a good leader. We can be leaders anywhere we go at any time if we follow Jesus’ example.