The Servant Leader

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Leadership! What is it that truly distinguishes one as a leader? Is it leadership style or possessing certain skills and abilities to lead? Is it one’s character or is it one’s ability to develop and resolve complex strategies? Are leaders born or are they made? Warren G. Bennis, an American scholar, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration, and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California once said:

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born -- that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. (ThinkExist.com, “Quotes by Warren G. Bennis on Leadership.” http://thinkexist.com/quotes/warren_g._bennis/.

Here in America our entire Armed Forces is built on the premise that leaders are made. As well, many of America’s Fortune 500 corporations believe that leaders are made as evidenced by their annual expenditures on countless resources developing leadership training materials and holding training and development seminars, all in hope of creating the “über” leader.

Notwithstanding the quest, what the past two years have confirmed for us, as history has repeatedly revealed to us, man’s understanding of leadership and God’s design of leadership vastly differ. At the heart of man’s leadership and at the head of man’s leadership is himself and as a result man’s leadership ultimately leads to failure. This failure in human leadership is not without consequences and humankind, in her despair and hopelessness, rebels against God.

In direct contrast, God’s design for leadership begins and ends wit...

... middle of paper ...

...ity,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/person-personality.

The Greek Bible Study Online: Read, Word Study, Translate, “Paraklete,” http://www.greekbiblestudy.org/gnt/main.do.

NOTES

Burrell, Dan, Dr. DSMN 605 Class Notes, Lesson 4. Lynchburg, VA: Liberty University.

(APA Style - Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary (11th ed.). (2005). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.

Song of Roland. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, [1959].

9. Tim Lynch, DS9 Trials and Tribble-ations Review, 1996, [online],

available from http://www.bradley.edu/campusorg/psiphi/DS9/ep/503r.html,

8 October 1997.

B Lynch, Tim. DS9 Trials and Tribble-ations Review. 1996. [Online]. Available

from http://www.bradley.edu/campusorg/psiphi/DS9/EP/503r.html. 8 October

1997.

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