The 5 Core Functions of a Christian Leader
by John Sweetman (neoLeader founder and contributor)
How can you pick a Christian leader? There's an easy answer - look for followers. Leadership is about influencing followers. In my teaching on leadership, I use a slightly more complicated definition of a Christian leader:
"A Christian leader is a servant with the earned credibility and God-given capacity to influence followers in a particular context to together pursue their God-given direction."
But the heart of it all is influencing followers. There is supposedly an old Chinese proverb that says, "If you think you are leading but no-one is following, you are merely taking a walk." In other word, no followers equates with no leader.
"Followers" do not necessarily do everything the leader asks, or agree with everything the leader says. We're talking about followers here, not clones. But followers allow themselves to be influenced by the leader.
Why would people follow you? Why would they allow you to influence them? Many Christian leaders have no idea. It just seems to happen. But in fact there are very clear reasons why others follow you or don't follow you. Followers are attracted by what the leader offers them. So if we can spell out what it is that Christian leaders need to offer their followers, then we can work on growing in these areas to become more effective leaders.
neoLeader is based on five basic contributions Christian leaders makes to their followers. We only make these contributions with God's help, whose Spirit works within us to empower us as leaders. If you want to be a more effective Christian leader, then building your contribution to your followers is a great place to start.
The five functions of a Christian leader are listed below. These are what a Christian leader offers to followers. The order in which I have listed these functions is important. Each function builds on the one(s) before it.
1. CHARACTER
3. VISION
4. EQUIPPING
5. TEAMS
