Job Challenges Friends – Job 6:1-7:21

What enabled Job to possess such integrity as a leader?

1. Strong Security: He felt emotionally secure enough to take criticism.
2. Clear Conscience: He kept a clear and sensitive conscience regarding sin.
3. Pure Motives: He refused to entertain self-indulgent motives.
4. Solid Character: He was committed to doing the right thing at any cost.

Consistency – Job 31:1-40

Job pledges to maintain his integrity despite his circumstances. Such a commitment is a crucial key to leadership. Here’s why:

1. Leaders must be visionary, but they cannot see everything in the future.
2. Instead of pretending to be in control, leaders must model being under control.
3. Leaders must model humanity and identify with the limitations of followers.
4. Leaders must model an anchored life, living from character, not emotions.
5. While leaders don’t know what tomorrow holds, they do know who holds tomorrow.

Moral Failure – Proverbs 5:3-23

How many leaders have ruined their lives and damaged the lives of others through immorality? Character has become a crucial issue today precisely because of the myriad leaders in the political, business, and religious worlds who have fallen morally. No doubt spiritual warfare has played a big role in the tens of thousands of leaders who have failed. They fall partly because the enemy has targeted leaders for attack.

Leaders need to remember that they influence many others beyond themselves; they never fall in a vacuum. They also need to realize that replacing fallen leaders is a slow and difficult process.

How can we guard against falling? First, we must take care not to emphasize the gifts of a leader over his or her character. We have an unhealthy tendency to see and reward the gift more than the character, but both are to be developed. We must strike the following balance if we are to finish well:

WHAT I AM	WHAT I DO	THE RESULT
Humble	Rely on God	God’s Power
Visionary	Set Goals	High Morale
Convictional	Do Right	Credibility

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join me next time for part 3 of Leadership Quality: Character.