WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A LEADER

106518823 450x337 WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A LEADER

A lot of TV evangelists have had lots of charisma, but they’ve bombed out because they had no character. They had major character defects.
A while back on one of the children’s quiz shows the question was “What do you call a person who speaks through a dummy without moving his lips?” The child said, “An evangelist?”

The foundation of leadership is character, not charisma. Charisma has nothing to do with it. You don’t have to have charisma to be a leader. You do have to have character, credibility, because leadership is influence and if you don’t have credibility nobody is going to follow you.

Reputation is what people say you are, character is what you really are. D. L. Moody said, “Character is what you are in the dark when nobody is looking.” I Timothy 3:1-13, Paul lays out the leadership characteristics for church leadership. All those characteristics he laid out necessary to be in the ministry, not once does he mention you’ve got to have a seminary education.

Leadership is not based on academies it’s character, on who you are.
Leaders come in all types and shapes and sizes of temperaments. There is no one leadership personality. God wants to use your personality. Look at the four different temperaments: Paul was a choleric. Peter was a sanguine. Moses was a melancholic. Abraham was a phlegmatic. They are as different as night and day. God used them all. Leadership has nothing to do with personality. You don’t have to be outgoing to be a leader. You don’t have to be a sanguine to be a leader.

What you do have to have is character. All great leaders have character. Sometimes a person gets into leadership without character and then those character flaws cause their downfall. It’s interesting when you consider these personality types.
As we look at Nehemiah, we’re going to see a man of God who was a very ordinary type of person but did extraordinary things because he had character in his life. The fact is you will burn out if you try to imitate somebody else’s personality. If you want to be a leader, don’t say, “I want to be like…” and pick a model. If you try to imitate their personality, you will most likely burn out. All leaders are very different, there is great diversity. What great leaders do have in common is credibility and character.

Hebrews 13:7-8 “Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” This passage gives us three characteristics of good leaders: They have a message worth remembering. When they talk, people listen. “Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you.” Evidently, there is something worth remembering there.

They have a lifestyle worth considering. “Consider the outcome of their way of life.” Does their walk match their talk? Does their life match what they say they are? They have a faith worth imitating. “Imitate their faith.” If you want to be a good leader, you need to develop a message worth remembering (What is my life message? What does God want to say to the world through me?), have a lifestyle worth considering and have a faith worth imitating. That’s all character.

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