What makes one a leader? Is it talent? Ability? A certain mix of gifts? A skill set? Is it a mindset? A personality type? What qualifies one for leadership?
Better question. What makes one a good leader? Is it influence? Power? The number of followers we have on Twitter? Or friends we have on Facebook? Is it our popularity?
Even better question. What makes one a great leader? This is a question that consumes me. Mainly because I serve an organization whose very life depends on good, if not great, leadership. And I am unapologetic about it.
So what is it that makes a great leader? I have been thinking and studying and pondering this question for years now and I have come to this conclusion...Great leaders are those who embrace and overcome their brokenness. If you stop and think about the great leaders we admire throughout history and you dig a bit into their personal story, you almost invariably discover they have embraced and overcome great personal hardship. Consider great leaders like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, among many others. Great men and women who have overcome so much and whose leadership is shaped by the hardships they suffered. Or think of the great leaders that no one will ever heard about. The great leaders who've impacted your own life and I imagine a significant part of their greatness is due to the challenges they've faced.
Think about the movie Unbroken and the incredible story told there. Better yet, read the book! What is it about the story that we find so compelling? It is a story of one man's struggle against hardship, pain, suffering, injustice, and torture. He faces great evil and he overcomes. Not only physically. If you read the book, you discover that he overcomes both emotionally and spiritually as well. How does that happen? How does this man overcome something that would destroy so many of us if we were faced with the same situation? He overcomes by embracing his brokenness. By forgiving the man who caused him so much pain. And as he does so, I would argue, greatness emerges.
I think about my own life. I can remember in one very scary night in March of 2009 standing on the edge of an abyss. The work I was involved in was cratering on a level that was career-threatening. And the harder I worked, the worse things got. I love what I do and I could feel it slipping through my grasp. Adding to my crisis was the fact that my marriage was in trouble. My wife had just given me an ultimatum. I needed to choose. It was either her or the work. I was neglecting her and my children. I was angry and anxious all the time. My personal and professional life was in tatters. I can remember literally feeling like my life was teetering on the edge of an abyss so deep and so dark that I couldn't see how I could recover. I was staring at the end of my career. The end of my marriage. The end of my family. And I thought...the end of my life.
So what happens in a moment like that? I think one is faced with an existential choice. One can choose to simply give up. Fall into the abyss. Let life fall into ruin. And of course the fallout is devastating. Or...one can work harder. They can continue to fight and struggle. They can resist the brokenness. Ignore it. Deny it. And unfortunately, those folks too often go over the edge but at least they go down fighting. There is a third choice. It is the path of embrace.
The greatest leader - for my money - who ever lived is a man named Jesus Christ. He lived two thousand years ago and is so influential today that we build our calendars around his birth. Half of the world's population claims to follow Him. The amount of good that has been done in his name over the centuries is nothing short of breathtaking. (Of course it does need to be said that great evil has also been perpetuated in His name as well.) As many people know, Jesus faced great hardship and suffering in his life. He was an extremely popular leader in his day who became a threat. His arrest was in the dark of night. His trial was a joke. His sentence unjust. And his death was brutal. But as He was being crucified, He embraced the brokenness. He stared into the abyss of sin and evil and death and - I believe - He overcame.
Now I firmly believe His path is paradigmatic. His example is meant to be emulated. I have found this to be true in my own life. Not that I have achieved greatness or could be called a "great leader" by any stretch. But I want to be great. I do. Not because I need to be great but because I want to make as big an impact as I can on the world around me. I want to serve the people I love with as much energy and passion as possible. So I go back to that springtime night in 2009 and the fears and anxieties I felt. I go back to that experience of staring into the darkness and wondering where life would lead. It was there as I felt myself begin to fall over the edge into that abyss that I felt another Hand holding me up. A Presence there with me. Encouraging me. Helping me understand that my life need not be defined by my circumstances. That what the world intended for evil, He would use for good in my life...if I would just let Him. If I would embrace Him. If I would surrender to Him. And I did.