Today’s Reading, Proverbs 27-29
Focal Scripture: Proverbs 29:2 “When the righteous flourish, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, people groan.”
Good leadership is worth more than people realize. You don’t realize that until you experience poor leadership in your home, work, or even church life. I am amazed at just how often the Bible addresses the right way to lead and those who are in leadership. Everywhere you read in the Bible you can see the ramifications of poor leadership on the people and you can see the success of positive leadership on nations and the church. Leadership is revealed through the hearts of the people. Leadership is never in a vacuum.
In today’s reading we see this truth explained about leadership. The writer tells us that when righteous people lead and flourish the people rejoice. Good leadership is evident in the jubilee of the people. Then the writer warns that when the wicked rules the people groan. Wicked rulers cause pain because they lead from themselves and not from the Lord.
There are a few important things to notice right from the beginning from these verses. First, this is not talking about success. Good leaders do not always meet the standard of success that the world has set. This also means that bad leaders can have tremendous success, but cause pain for their people. Accomplishing goals or tasks does not mean that the person leads well. It just means that they get things done according to the world’s standards. Far too often we apply worldly truth to biblical settings and those two do not go together.
So what does define and reveal successful leadership? It is the response of the people that are being lead that determines success. I can tell you from personal experience that good leaders have a reputation of treating others well even when they disagree. Good leaders may even be disliked because of their positions on topics or convictions they hold. However, even though they may be disagreed with, the people still feel loved and respected. The people can see the heart behind the decisions.
Poor leaders invoke the opposite reaction from those they lead. Not only are there decisions not the best, they micromanage and go after other people to demonstrate their authority. This attitude causes people to groan and complain. People leave the organization and blame gets assigned to everyone else as being the problem. Poor leaders only lead those that do what they want and think just like them. This leads to pain and groaning. This leads to people revolting against the leader.
The challenge for us today is to ask ourselves what our leadership looks like from the people’s perspective. The simplest way to answer that question is to ask your biggest opponent. I have disagreed fiercely with people in my life but at the same time I respected their leadership and never complained about them. I only have experienced two people in my life that were such bad leaders I could not follow them. They exposed their hearts and attitude and it was not a place I was willing to follow. In both situations a mass exodus took place and in both situations those whom the leader got close with covered up the problems.
I bring this up because leadership is a witnessing tool. It turns people towards Christ or away from Christ. Leadership reveals the heart of a person. It reveals my heart and it reveals your heart. I hope and pray that even though people may disagree with things I decide they know my heart is to do the best to glorify God. They know I treated them well even if we are on opposite sides of a decision.
Our leadership is clear by the way people respond. You will always have detractors but if the people are suffering under your leadership it’s time to do some self reflection and learn how to lead biblically.
Tomorrow, I plan on reading Proverbs 30-31
