CROWTHER JOURNAL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

The test of effective leadership is change that meets group and individual needs and enables individuals to fulfil the will of God in their lives. There are different dimensions to effective leadership – as personal (the individual), social (the group) and production (the job). The good spiritual leader is able to focus on all the three at the same time, carefully balancing and assigning proper weight and attention to each and never sacrificing one in order to achieve the other. They poor leaders whose zeal to get the job done causes them to run roughshod over the people or whose passion for group welfare makes them oblivious to the individual or whose fervour to promote harmony leads them to achieve nothing but that. It is because of the meticulous attention to value systems that church leaders strive to maintain a climate where creative ideas, healthy relationship, conflict management and participation in decision making are welcomed. The true leader makes sure that innovative ideas are solicited and that the people with these ideas are encouraged to participate in the work of the ministry. All of these are influence, but of a kind that is ethically acceptable and necessary in the church. If a spiritual leader truly wants others to learn and if he is to inspire them, he needs to demonstrate worthwhile truths in his own life. This fact means that nothing leads as an example. Values and behavioural norms are simply not transmitted easily by talk or memo but are conveyed very effectively by doing and doing visibly. In Paul’s words “follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor 11: 1). Church leadership is all about raising both spiritual and physical structures of the body of Christ – the church.

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