There are a few words that go along with having leadership or a position of authority: Responsibility. Vulnerability. Costly.
Authority, or leadership, equals responsibility. And, it requires that the leader be someone who can absorbs the cost for others. This is what it means to be vulnerable and why leadership is costly. Leadership comes with personal loss and expense for the sake of others.
Leadership requires putting others before yourself. It doesn’t mean leaders never give direction or command, but it does mean that the motive and goal is the good of those around and under the leader.
Leadership is a place of vulnerability, a place where you stand at the front of the line. And I don’t mean the front of the line where you are first to be seated, served, etc. No, good leadership and authority moves to the front of the line to a place of vulnerability for the sake of others. Leaders are exposed and at the front of the line for the sake of those who are behind them. And this is why it’s costly.
Bad leadership (authority) takes advantage of those around them and under them. Bad leaders abdicate their place of vulnerability and move those behind them to the front of the line.
You can see it all around us in today’s culture. Criticism and attack is the currency of our culture. Unfortunately more often than not, those who criticize and attack others become leaders who criticize and attack those around them and under their leadership.
The worldly leader builds himself up at the expense of others, whereas the godly leader builds others up at his expense.
This is the way of Jesus, who “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6–8, ESV)
Jesus exercised his authority and gave us the greatest example of what it means to be a servant leader… and he did it at his expense. He made himself vulnerable and took the cost for others.
These are the leaders we need. This is the leader I want to be. I am grateful for the grace, mercy, and patience that God has given to me.