The motivation of a leader

If leadership = influence, (and I believe that it does), then every one of us is a leader. 

But what exactly is a leader's motivation? It is true that many aspire to positions of leadership for their own self-centered reasons. They have a lust for power. They want the challenge of being the best they can be and the people they lead are simply a means to an end.

For the leader who is serious about following Jesus, those last few sentences are appalling to him/her. They are motivated by an entirely different set of reasons. Instead of valuing themselves and using people, they use themselves to show value to the people they lead. In essence, they are serving those they lead and have a passion to make the people they lead better off for the experience.

But, for a Christ-like leader to help the people he/she leads to thrive and become better people, the leader must deal with personal issues. As I have observed Scripture and studied the lives of godly leaders, a common trend is that God tends to take leaders through more trials than others. God has to prepare the leader before they take positions of leadership and that often requires a lot of bad stuff. (If a diamond-in-the-rough could feel, the jeweler's cutting and polishing would hurt but it makes for a beautiful diamond.)

That being said, if a leader is to make the people he/she serves better, he/she better not hang onto hurts. They had better let them go. They need to forgive everyone who has hurt them. Otherwise, their vices will spread like a cancer to those they lead.

A beautiful story of someone who went through tremendous trials as God prepared them for leadership is Joseph. He determined that he wasn't going to hang on to past wrongs done to him. He was committed to serving and blessing those who were under his authority.

Genesis 45:4-8 (New Living Translation)
"'Please, come closer,' he said to them. So they came closer. And he said again, 'I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt. But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives. This famine that has ravaged the land for two years will last five more years, and there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors. So it was God who sent me here, not you! And he is the one who made me an adviser to Pharaoh - the manager of his entire palace and the governor of all Egypt.'"

Oh, that each leader who claims a relationship with Jesus would evidence such character!