about two-thirds of the way up the trunk. At this point he’d tell the story of a big storm a few decades back. Lightning struck the tree and slashed off a giant branch. It astounded me that the tree overcame this attack and just kept rising toward the sky.
Over time this towering tree began to capture my grandmother’s concern. She worried that a windstorm would split off one of the tree-sized branches. If that happened, one of the small pre-war homes surrounding their lot would be badly damaged, or worse. Eventually Grandma’s worrying caught on in the wider family, and it was agreed that the time had come. The great tree would need to be felled.
An arborist was contracted. A day was set aside. The vehicles arrived, equipped with ladders, saws and ropes. Piece by piece and branch by branch this great tree came down. Slowly but surely, it was cut up and taken away. In fact, it took many pickup truckloads—one family member recalls about 40—to cart away the wood, branches and leaves from this great tree. Over the course of just my grandparents’ lifetime, a fragile sapling had grown remarkably, thrived to maturity, prevailed through adversity and left behind a great legacy.
One of the reasons I love this story is because of the spiritual metaphor. I’m quickly drawn to the parable of the sower in Mark 4. This is the story of the farmer who sows the seeds. Some of the seeds fall on the path, some on the rocky places, some amongst the thorns and some on the good soil.
If you are familiar with the story you know that the seed sown on the path was quickly eaten by birds. The seed sown in the rocky places sprang up quickly, but it had shallow roots. It withered in the scorching sun. The seed falling among the thorns grew but was choked by the plants and was unfruitful. Finally, the seed that fell on good soil “came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times” (Mark 4:8).
In explaining the parable, Jesus parallels the seed sown on the path to the Word that Satan comes and takes away. The seed with shallow roots scorched in the rocky places represents the Word that, though received with joy, lasts only a short time because of trouble and persecution. The seed choked by the thorns is those overcome by the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things. Lastly, the seed on the good soil stands for those who “hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown” (Mark 4:20).
The parable of the sower is reality. Like it or not, it is a spiritual truth. Some will not make it to the spiritual sapling stage. Some will get stuck or worse along the way. But some will produce much fruit and leave a great legacy.
Over the last couple of decades I’ve seen this parable lived out over and over, in hundreds of lives. My heart has been broken when I have watched dear friends, fellow Christ-followers and gifted leaders who seem to have been spiritually snatched, scorched or choked. This list is far too long. Thankfully, I know that God isn’t yet done with them—or with me, for that matter.
My heart has also been buoyed and inspired by those who continue to persevere, to grow and to see an exponential harvest of fruit produced in and through their lives. After all, God desires to see us bear much fruit. In teaching about the vine and the branches Jesus said, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:8).
By God’s grace and for God’s glory, I would like to be a part of this last group. My desire is to live a life that will bear much fruit. My prayer is to finish well. I’d like to grow to maturity, persevere through adversity and leave a legacy of fruitful impact for God’s kingdom.
This book has been written to help Christian leaders take practical steps toward this kind of life. However, before you get reading too far along, it’s important for me to explain the title, Leading Me.
Leading Me is a book about leadership. But it isn’t about the type of leadership that most people think about, read about or learn about. Bookshelves buckle under the weight of bestsellers about organizational leadership or team leadership, but Leading Me is about a more foundation kind of leadership—personal leadership.
Personal leadership is our first leadership responsibility. First and foremost, this means intentionally partnering with God and others to become the whole person he created and desires us to be. At its core, personal leadership isn’t about leading others or guiding organizations. It’s a personal focus to nurture a dynamic and intimate relationship with God. It’s about cultivating godly character that leads to long-term holiness and health. Personal leadership is also about developing deep, vibrant relationships and fostering the heart, calling and skills for effective impact through service.
For Christian leaders who are often driven to achieve and to do more, a focus on personal leadership can require a major paradigm shift. It means shifting from leadership influence, skills and competence to a whole-person perspective where Christ is central to all that we are. As Robert Clinton writes, “God is quietly, often in unusual ways, trying to get the leader to see that one ministers out what one is. God is concerned with what we are. We want to learn a thousand things because there is so much to learn and to do. But He will teach us one thing, perhaps in a thousand ways: I am forming Christ in you.”1
Personal leadership is also the prerequisite to all other leadership. To lead others well, you first need to lead yourself well. If you don’t lead yourself well, you won’t have integrity or be an example to others who look to you for leadership. If your walk doesn’t match your talk, others won’t trust you. And, in a day when the currency of leadership is trust, if you can’t be trusted, it becomes incredibly hard to lead others or to lead an entire organization.
If you don’t lead yourself well, you will find yourself distracted, stuck or even consumed by your own foibles and failures. A simple lack of attention and intentionality to your personal leadership will mean that you are not able to fully focus on other things, like the development of others, growing effective teams or guiding an organization. Neglecting your personal leadership can unravel everything. The news provides examples of this reality virtually every day in stories of gifted, talented and experienced team or organizational leaders who are disqualified because of poor personal leadership.
Leading yourself well is an act of stewardship. It also prevents you from becoming a bottleneck and prepares you for future opportunities. If you lead yourself well, other people will take notice and doors will open.
Personal leadership is also a strategic leverage point. You can seek to influence others, but they can choose to ignore, resist or even combat your leadership. You don’t have ultimate control of how others respond. But, you do have ultimate control on how you respond.
This doesn’t mean that personal leadership is all up to us. We don’t have the power or will to change ourselves. Ultimately, God’s forming work is his work. Jesus is the vine, God is the gardener, and we are the dependent branches. As Jesus says in John 15:5, “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” At the same time, our role isn’t passive. As we remain in Christ, we are partnering with God’s work in and through us.
But this isn’t easy. Our biggest leadership challenge actually looks back at us in the mirror every morning. It’s us. Dee Hock writes,
The first and paramount responsibility of anyone who purports to manage is to manage self…It is a complex, unending, incredibly difficult and oft-shunned task. We spend little time and rarely excel at management of self precisely because it is so much more difficult than prescribing and controlling the behavior of others. However, without management of self no one is fit for authority no matter how much they acquire, for the more authority they acquire the more dangerous they become.2
There are far too many news reports and stories of called, gifted and trained leaders who implode or cause great harm to others. This usually doesn’t happen because of lack of giftedness, education or skills. They implode and wreak havoc because they didn’t lead themselves well.
The focus of Leading Me is about inviting God and partnering with others to radically transform and practically lead the most important and most challenging person you can lead—yourself. Though I’m assuming