In his book, Stewards in the Kingdom, R. Scott Rodin suggests that one of the challenges that Christian educators encounter when teaching stewardship in churches or seminaries is that we often forget that we must first help students appropriate what it means to be a steward.  The focus on the practical aspects of stewardship often overwhelms our teaching of what it means to be a steward. 

There exists a corollary problem in leadership studies.  The over-emphasis on leadership methodology allows students who have not learned what it is to be a good leader to attempt to do what a good leader does.  This is why so many well educated people fail in leadership.  They are trying to put into practice what they have not become.  We have over-emphasized doing leadership, rather than being or becoming a leader.  We must dock the leader ship.

 Over the years of studying and speaking on the topic of leadership, several people have remarked to me that Jesus seems to imply that seeking to be a leader is contrary to His Way.  But Jesus doesn’t just imply it, He says it clearly: “Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:10-11 NASB).  For Jesus the focus is on being a servant, rather than aspiring to be a leader.  Servants, like stewards, should always be seeking to do what their master wants, not trying to become the master.

We are presented with a complicated paradox, however, as we understand the distinction between the intrinsic need for leadership in human societies and Christ’s giving preeminence to becoming servants.  The solution for some has become the notion of Servant Leadership.  This leadership theory has been wonderfully explicated by Robert K. Greenleaf and others over the past forty years or so.  And for Christians this stressing of servanthood was a welcome invitation to become participants in leadership discussions and scholarship.

But the overarching problem with servant leadership theory is that it still puts the cart before the horse.  It seems that many could be taught how to serve (or in some cases coerced to serve), without developing the selfless heart of a servant. After looking under the servant hood, would we find a Christ-like person, joyfully and selflessly serving the needs of God’s Kingdom and His people? 

Jesus knew that the motivation for true service could not be manufactured, and it really couldn’t be taught.  It must be imparted.  So, the basis of becoming leaders in the Kingdom of God is not learning about stewardship, servanthood, or leadership, but appropriating the image of God for service.  And at the root of a true leader is what is at the core of who God is: Love. 

Leadership that is effective and which will advance God’s Kingdom on earth must be based on love.  It must be imparted to the soul of the person and work its way out. And only God can do that.

I said earlier that servants, like stewards, should always be seeking to do what their master instructs them to do.  And the Master instructs us to do just one thing: Love!  Jesus, when challenged to summarize the entirety of Scripture, said that each of us ought to “Love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. And love our neighbor as ourselves” (Matthew 22:37, 39).

As we introduce the Great Commandment Leadership model, we must first examine the characteristics and motivations of a Great Commandment leader.  We shall not give practical advice on how to lead people before we have a firm grasp of the kind of people God wants to make us into.