9 Steps To Improving Your Christian Leadership Skills

The church world today, is facing one of its toughest challenges. While is battles with living up to the moral, ethical, and Godly standards that Christ Jesus has set himself for this body of believers to live by, this challenge is one of a different kind.

It is no secret that the body of Christ is facing a huge leadership challenge; one that is literally trying to erode its very foundation and stability, and it is more important than ever before that if you are involved in church leadership of any kind, than you understand how to walk the path of true inspired leadership.

Here are 9 simple steps to help you along…

1) Ensure You Walk The Walk – One of the most important things you can do as a Christian leader is to ensure that you walk what you talk—this means that you live according to what you believe. If there is anything in your life, moral or ethical, which would not stand up to scrutiny if the entire world found out—you must eliminate it immediately.  Do not give anyone an occasion to think that you are a hypocrite.

2) Walk With Honesty – Work in a manner that ensures that every decision that you make is both honest and ethical.  It is difficult to lead anyone effectively, whether they are Christians or not, when the decisions and actions that you make cane be perceived as unfair, unscrupulous, and dishonest. Keep your decisions and action above-board

3) Tell The Truth – Even though this should be an integral part of every Christian leader, it requires being said. Commit to telling the truth no matter what.  As a Christian leader, when you lie or tell half-truths, people tend to feel that your entire faith is a scam.  In fact, if you are habitually lying and telling half-truths, your faith may indeed be a scam, and should seek God’s grace in this part of your life.

4) Remain A Learning Leader – Learning leaders, always tend to make the best ones to follow. It should be an honor for you to learn and understand everything you can about what you have been chose to do, even if it means rolling up your sleeves and working in the trenches for awhile.  No one likes to be led by someone who has never done what they are requiring to be done.  This doesn’t mean you have to become an expert, just participate in the menial work long enough to understand the frustrating aspects of the work.  Another benefit to this is, when you have actually done the work, you can more effectively brainstorm solutions to challenges when they arise.

5) Lead By Example – Let your leadership be an exemplary one. How can you expect your employees or secretaries to arrive on time for work, and well dressed, if you are always late and sloppy looking?  They will follow what they see you doing.  Oftentimes, too many leaders think that their positions has earned them the right to do as they please – without being accountable. This is wrong. The higher you get in leadership, the more accountable you must be, simply because you are now responsible for leading others in the right paths by your own example.

6) Stay Productive – Do not drop your productive involvement;  Even though you may feel you have earned the right to delegate away all the work, continue to be involved in productive tasks.  By doing some of the work, not only do you gain the respect of your people, but also you keep in touch with the flow of things.  As a leader, it is easy to become disengaged from the actual productive parts of your work, and start making decisions that look good on paper and sound good around the boardroom table; but beware of this tactic because this type of decision making process is makes for worthless decisions when the rubber meets the road.

7) Check Up On Yourself – It is important that you constantly reevaluate your own performance.  Often, you may spend so much time correcting the actions of others and solving crises you didn’t create, that you develop a sense that you are often without faults and weaknesses in your scope of work.  Track you own growth and progress as well, and ask for honest feedback from others; you may not recognize when you are falling into bad habits that also need to be corrected.  Be the first to recognize and correct your own short-falling.

Sidestep Pride – Many times in positions of leadership, especially if you are good at what you do, it becomes easy to begin feeling that you are invincible.  When these ideas start floating around in your head, you should be aware that this often makes you more vulnerable to pride, and may cause you to become more difficult to follow as a leader. This can have a devastating effect on those who follow you. There is a thin line between strong confidence and foolish pride – make sure you stay humble and do not cross that line.

9) Learn To Wisely Manage Your Time – When you are in a position of leadership and find yourself delegating away most of the time-consuming tasks, it is easy to lose control of your time.  Again, when your people see you wasting your time, they will tend to do the same.

Remember, true leadership is about more than telling people what to do and when to do it because you are in charge; it is about helping other ro grow and thrive because of the valuable examples that you are setting in your position of authority.