Follow the...wait...who's the leader???

Over the past year I have been blessed to serve under the guidance of Pastor Todd Sitcler. Todd joined the staff of Cornerstone Church as the youth ministry director last spring and has since taught me so much about what being a leader truly means. One of the first lessons he taught me is that anyone can be a leader, but not everyone is an effective leader. I have also learned that being and effective leader and leading people to do good things for themselves and others are two very different things as well.

            To understand what it means to be a leader, it is important to know what a leader is. The Merriam-Webster online thesaurus defines the word leader as “one that takes the lead or sets an example.”¹ Simple enough, right? So a leader in the most basic form is a person who has influence; positive influence, negative influence, bold influence, quiet influence, the definition doesn’t differentiate or insinuate that the person even has to accept that the example he/she sets has impact.

I stumbled upon an anonymous quote this week that says, “A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not.”² In this sense, we are all leaders. The only way to avoid being a leader, even a bad one, is to be locked away and never interact with a single human being for your whole life. We all have impact through our words, actions and relationships. We all have a circle of influence. We all have a platform.

Most people never realize it, but this means that we each have a great potential to change the world, to influence and impact the people we surround ourselves with everyday. The question is, are you up to the challenge of being an effective, positive leader? Over the next week, take time to consider the influence you have in the lives of the people you interact with every day. While you’re at it, consider the following quote by Gene Mauch: “You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.”

Footnotes 

¹  www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/leader (3rd entry)

² www.quotegarden.com/leadership.html (3rd quote on page)

3  www.quotegarden.com/leadership.html (5th quote on page)

The Leaderboard: Defined

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines leaderboard as “a large board for displaying the ranking of the leaders in a competitive event.”¹ This particular leaderboard has absolutely nothing to do with that. Instead, its purpose is to display and discuss various leadership principles, quotes, statistics and ramblings.

In high school I certainly wasn’t prom queen, but I wasn’t necessarily a social pariah either. I found my comfort zone off to the side, out of sight and out of mind. I existed and that was enough. Definitely not what any sane person would consider a leader. The truth is, I allowed a mostly terrible childhood to steal away my opportunity to live a fulfilled life. As I got older I realized that life could be so much better than merely surviving, only existing. I decided to take everything I had learned through past experiences and somehow inspire others to dare to live the life they always wanted but never thought they could.

The first step in the process was to find worth within myself, to step beyond my comfort zone and go for broke. I started by joining the leadership team of the church youth group I had been attending for years. It wasn't until my sophomore year in college that I went all in. I began pledging a professional co-ed business fraternity, ran for the pledge class presidency…and won. It was quite possibly one of the most monumental moments of my young life. As the tallies were drawn on the board one by one, I became more and more confident in two things: my peers saw me as a leader and I wanted to lead. My presidency was cut short when I decided to leave school to pursue a nine-month ministry leadership and discipleship experience called Master’s Commission. It was during this time that I learned what it meant to be a leader. With a current total of nearly six years of leadership experience under my belt I can honestly and humbly admit that I still don’t know even close to everything, but every day I do my best to be better than the day before.

The leaderboard is simply a collection of those things that I have learned and continue learning, a reference for some and a reminder for me. It is my highest hope that the contents of this leaderboard will inform and inspire leaders of all ages, ranks and professions to continuously strive to be better than the day before. Making this simple daily commitment has made every difference in the way I am able to communicate with and relate to those who are willing to follow.

I would like to leave you with this final thought to be discussed in my next blog: John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”²

¹ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leaderboard

²http://govleaders.org/quotes6.htm (seventh quote on the page)