Redefining Leadership: The Power of Followership

Forbes magazine in 2018 said that 86.7 billion dollars was spent on leadership development on leadership training programs. Our most revered institutions are devoted to this. Harvard Law School says that in his mission statement it is devoted to training leaders in the legal profession, not lawyers but leaders that are there. [00:32:33]

Turns out that back in the 1950s and 60s when people were asked do you can you trust the federal government to do the right thing about 70 percent of us said yes. By 2011, it was 15. About that same time 77 percent of all Americans said that we are in a leadership crisis. [00:46:19]

If you were to ask what program, what movement has had the biggest impact on personal development on human being development on the change of life on catalyzing or stimulating human beings to grow to change, to become better in their relationships, to recover from addictions, to sacrifice, to be generous, hands down whatever you think about this movement it would be one day when a carpenter in Nazareth closed up his shop and became a rabbi. [00:06:05]

Very interesting he was deliberately looking for followers. It's very strange we live in a world where everybody wants to be a leader and nobody wants to be a follower. Jesus asked everybody to become a follower and didn't ask anybody to become a leader. [00:06:51]

George McDonald writes, at the same moment Jesus says follow me, he is following the Father. His face is set homeward. He will have us follow him because he is bent on the will of his Father and by the way Jesus as a follower of his Father is a person of fierce will. [00:08:04]

To follow him is to be learning of him to think his thoughts to use his judgments to see things as he sees them to feel things as he feels them to be of the same heart soul and mind as he is so that we also may be of the same mind with the Father. [00:08:34]

If you take a look at it based on the New Testament it is a fiercely committed question asking, mistake-making, risk-taking, growth-loving student particularly student of Jesus who is marked by peculiar persistence. That's a follower, and we are going to reclaim and redefine and redeem and recapture the grand adventure of being a follower. [00:09:06]

We all will follow someone we all we follow causes we follow values we follow our hearts devotions. To think that followership and leadership as we often talk about it are contrasted or opposites or two different groups is a badly misguided notion. [00:10:03]

If you're going to follow Jesus you got to be behind him, you got to move at his pace, you have to listen to what he says, and you have to do what he does. So today today as we're beginning this journey to follow and and we'll kind of deconstruct leadership along the way. [00:10:33]

Today, if you want to follow Jesus just do one thing because Jesus said to do it. You don't have to spend time asking yourself do I believe how much do I believe just ask did I do a single thing because he said to do it or did I abstain from anything because he said to abstain from it. [00:10:45]

Have I made a commitment today I will not judge and then I see or I will forgive someone I will do something kind to a person where I have been feeling hostile towards them have you given a moment of time or any of your money or possessions or skill in the service of somebody that asked you. [00:11:23]

Today, do one thing because Jesus said to do it, try following, and next time we're going to talk about why you were created. [00:11:23]