Servant Leadership

Ford Maddox Brown
Jesus washes Peter's feet
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_washing_Peter%27s_feet.jpg

In today’s culture in the West there is intense fascination with leadership studies. Businesses and organisations invest millions in identifying and training leaders.

At the same time the rewards and pitfalls for leaders seem more extreme than ever before. Leaders in the public eye face hostility and adulation in equal measure; leaders are like marmite. Just think for a moment of the leaders you loathe and the ones you love!

More than ever, today, we are in need of leaders who can enable positive transformation in the communities that we live. What would that sort of leadership look like?

Jesus offers a particular form of leadership when he washes his disciples' feet the night before he dies (John 13:1-15). As teacher and ‘Lord’, i.e. one with authority, status and power he deliberately humbles himself to serve those whom he leads. He gets alongside them to model a way of relating that is about loving service. In washing his disciples’ feet, he is demonstrating, and modelling changed behavior. Instead of describing or promising a new future, he demonstrates that future by his own example. He is saying to them: you want to experience life differently, you want to have a better world: then do as I do, serve one another:

‘If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet’.

Children washing feet during the Maundy Service

For me Jesus provides us with 3 basic principles for what good leadership looks like:

A good leader models what changed behavior looks like.

He places the highest value on loving service – drawing people together.

He empowers his followers to be the change they want to see

All of us have leadership roles in our life, at all sorts of different levels – if it’s being a Mum or Dad, an older brother or sister, a manager at work, being a role model in the air cadets, or in another uniformed organization, or being a political leader, or a business leader. All of us also follow others – we make decisions about who to trust and whose word to value. We have many choices to make.

Jesus’ example shows us that when we are leading - actions speak louder than words. When we are assessing leaders or leadership, that principle is significant. Are we modelling the sort of changed behavior that we say we value? Is that person modelling the sort of behavior she’s encouraging?

The transformational aspect of Jesus’ leadership comes from his ability to enable change in others. The power of his messages comes from his ability to draw people together in relationships of love and service. Better community relationships, healthier organisations, a better functioning society requires change from all of us. We cannot expect to change to come from elsewhere, it comes from each of us. That places responsibility on our shoulders, but it’s also empowering.

Just think for a moment about your home, or work, or place where you volunteer. What sort of change does that place need? How might you go about modelling the change you want to see? How can you demonstrate the principles of loving humble service that Jesus models – that will bring people together in relationships of love and care?

In our culture good leadership is essential; Jesus offers an example of good leadership we can all follow: he models changed behavior, he places the highest value on loving service and he empowers us to be the change we want to see.