Leadership Development LEAD 0510

Assignment 1: Reflective Leadership Essay

Student: Kwan Chan Professor: Peter Dickens

A lot of people that find themselves in management or leadership positions know what
they need to do in order to be better leaders. Nonetheless, they just fail to act
appropriately from time to time. Being an effective, trusted, and dedicated leaders
requires constant professional and personal development, self-reflection, honest and
regular feedbacks provided by the team, as well as taking relevant actions based on the
feedbacks given.

Finally, being a great leader means having constant persistence, solid focus, as well as
team-building skills that altogether create a perfect leader. However, without a united and
dedicated team, no leadership can be formed. That’s what every leader should keep in
mind during their professional activities.
 Leadership has been an ever-changing concept for me. The people that I have

encountered while serving in ministry have greatly influenced my definition of

leadership. I have seen my paradigm on leadership evolve as a result of their influence in

my life. In this paper, I will discuss three revelations that have shaped the way I approach

the idea of leadership.

In high school, my friend Mike started a community outreach ministry, and put

me in charge of the ministry to the homeless in downtown Toronto. I was responsible for

organizing and leading sandwich runs, and he was in charge of the youth conference that

was held at the end of the school year. At that stage of my leadership career, I was very

task-oriented. I completed everything that was assigned to me, and oftentimes went

beyond what was asked of me. I created teams that made the care-packages and bought

the materials. I led the sandwich runs, organized the debriefing sessions, and gave basic

guidelines on how to evangelize. The ministry was successful on many levels; we had

hundreds of youth participate in our monthly programs, we handed out thousands of care-

packages, and we also had many opportunities to share the gospel.

emphasis on building relationships. On top of organizing the youth conference, he

invested heavily in me, and encouraged my development as a leader. His success was

twofold; the conference resulted in many students coming to Christ, and his positive

influence on me raised the quality of my ministry. His leadership also had a more lasting

impact than mine; conferences and sandwich runs are momentary events, but I still regard

him as one of the most influential people in my leadership development.

When I reflect on my time with Mike, I realize the importance of investing in

people, rather than investing in enterprises. Rinehart stressed the need for leaders to have

“one-anothering” relationships with their fellow workers (Rinehart, 1998, p 96). The call

of the leader is to be an encourager, a bearer of burdens, a builder, and a teacher

(Rinehart, 1998, p 97). Mike was all of these things, and as a result, I was transformed. I

saw the transience of my impact, and his lasting influence in my life. By investing in me,

Mike was able to answer yes to the question, “Does the Lord have followers as a result of

the leader’s influence?” (Rinehart, 1998, p 112).

My second revelation is summed up by the quote: “Leadership is not a position.

To my knowledge, a promotion never made anyone a leader. Leadership is a fiduciary

calling” (Dickens, 2008). A misconception that I had about leadership was that it required

a position. I had been told that you can lead from any position, but I scoffed at that notion

because the only people that said that were the people in leadership!

In my freshmen year of university, I desired to see Christians live as the salt and

the light in our campus. I wanted to see Christians reading their bible, praying,
evangelizing, and making a God-impression on our campus. However, I thought that I

could only communicate my vision if I was in a position of leadership. I ended up lusting

after an executive position in my Christian fellowship, and by the grace of God I was not

given one.

At the start of my second year, I met up with a friend who talked about his desire

for campus evangelism. His sharing rekindled my passions from my first year, and we

decided to go and act on our passion. On the Friday of that week, the two of us went out

and started sharing the gospel. That day, one girl accepted Christ as her personal Lord

and Saviour. We resolved to evangelize every Friday; every week, we went out and

talked to anyone that would listen to us. We started sharing our experiences with our

friends, which ignited their desire to do Kingdom work. We started prayer meetings and

bible studies because we realized the need for daily communal feeding. We ended up

training and equipping our friends to be street evangelists, and by the end of the term we

had over ten people sharing their faith on a weekly basis. Our efforts led to God inspired

open-air worship services, and our Christian fellowship instituting daily prayer meetings

and funded our outreach conferences, which allowed for hundreds of students to hear the

gospel message.

Reflecting on this experience, I realize that I had crippled myself by confining

leadership to a formal position. Instead of acting on my God-given vision, I waited for a

position to allow me to lead. Thankfully, God used that conversation with my friend to

override my thinking with His calling. Without fully realizing it, my paradigm of

leadership shifted from a power-driven leadership, to one that abandoned power in favour

of love (Nouwen, 1989, p 82). Once that happened, I started to build God’s kingdom
(Rinehart 1998, p 93), instead of patiently waiting for nothing. The lesson that I learned is

that leadership is to “identify and announce the ways in which Jesus is leading”

(Nouwen, 1989, p 87), and not about where I am standing when I announce it.

My third epiphany about leadership occurred when I was reflecting on the music

ministry at my church. Last year, a group of youth formed a worship team with an adult

youth counselor as the primary overseer. He was the classic power leader; he alone

controlled the power (Rinehart, 1998). He made the youth conform to his vision of the

songs, disallowing creative freedom. He was fixated on musical excellence and was

pragmatic in his methods, verbally abusing the teens and then justifying it as a means to

get to improve musically. He exemplified the power leader perfectly: valuing

standardization, conformity, pragmatism, productivity and centralization (Rinehart, 1998,

p 36). As a result of his leadership, the teens’ zeal for music worship was snuffed out.

They have complained about being burnt out, and have talked about quitting the team.

I contrast this situation with the worship team that I have led over that same time

period. I have been open to my team’s feedback and suggestions during practices, and our

music sets are always a cumulative effort. I trust the individuals on my team, allowing

them to express their worship in a free and creative manner. I root our worship in

scripture, and impart the vision of our music set before we start practicing. The fruit of

my leadership has been the growth of the people in my team. My bassist recently started

leading a new team, and we are in the process of grooming my new bassist to be the next

worship leader.
 Through my church’s music ministry, I was able to see the contrasting

consequences between power and servant leadership. The youth suffered as the result of

being led by a power leader. They did not experience any encouragement or teaching,

instead being subjected to criticism and discouragement on a weekly basis. Similar to

how Rinehart’s friend alienated his team members (Rinehart, 1998, p 45), the adult

counselor had turned the teens away from serving in the church. Meanwhile, I have

adhered to the principles of empowering, encouraging, and Christ-centeredness (Rinehart,

1998, 39-40), which has led to a vibrant serving environment, and the development of

new leaders. My reflection on the music ministry has allowed me to see the importance of

servant leadership, and I have resolved to follow the servant leadership model (Rinehart,

1998, p 38-41) in all aspects of my life.

My leadership paradigm is the result of the many experiences that I have had

serving in ministry. I have had life changing revelations while being led, and also while

leading. The three stories in this paper show how uniquely God worked to teach me His

definition of leadership. He is not confined to books, or reproducible events, but He is

simply asking, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” (Isaiah 6:8). And to those

who answer, He teaches them by His Word, and empowers them by His Spirit.
References

Dickens, Peter. (2008). A Theology of Leadership.

Nouwen, Henri J. M. (1989). In the name of Jesus. New York (NY): The Crossroad
Publishing Company.

Rinehart, Stacy T. (1998). Upside Down: The paradox of servant leadership. Colorado
Springs (CO): NavPress.