So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. – Genesis 39:22

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 24, 2015): Genesis 39

Peter Drucker has been described as the founder of modern management. But the real key to Drucker’s reassessment of management principles was that he redefined what it meant to be a leader. Too often in our culture, leadership seems to be a position. Our belief is often summed up by the statement “if I was the president, then I would show the world what kind of a leader I am.” But the misconception that we hold is that leadership is a function of position. And that belief is fundamentally untrue. Leadership has nothing to do with position. Drucker pointed out that -  

“all the effective leaders I have encountered – both those I worked with and those I merely watched – knew four simple things: a leader is someone who has followers; popularity is not leadership, results are; leaders are highly visible, they set examples; leadership is not rank, privilege, titles or money, it is responsibility.” – Peter Drucker

Unfortunately often institutional leadership, maybe especially inside the church, seems to violate every one of Drucker’s principles. Inside the church, a leader is someone elected or appointed to a position (and often has no followers), they are highly visible (but often for the wrong reasons; their visibility seems to be a matter of ego rather than action), they are popular (but achieve very few results) and leadership is all about recognition and privilege (and never about responsibility.) And all of this might be the reason that the church seems to struggle with going beyond the mediocrity.

Personally, I wish I could find a way to wipe positional leadership out of the church. The fundamental reality is that the easiest thing to give someone is a title, but it might also be the most destructive. I don’t want anyone to lead because they hold a position. I want them to lead because they are leaders – because they have people following them and they have the overwhelming desire to use their natural abilities to change the world in which we live.

Leaders lead. They can’t help it. There is simply something inside of them that drives them to change their world. And Joseph seems to be a phenomenal example of this principle. He is sold into slavery and immediately finds a way to change his situation, becoming a leader inside the house of his master. And when he is placed in prison, the leader within Joseph still couldn’t be contained. Even in prison Joseph leads; he finds himself in charge of all who are in prison with him and is “made responsible” for all that happened there. I am sure there were days when Joseph wanted nothing more than to sink back into obscurity, but the leader inside of him would not allow that – it was going to find a way to be expressed no matter what the outside situation was. His leadership abilities simply refused to be contained.

So don’t wait for someone to give you a position of leadership. If you are a leader, lead. Because you really don’t have any other choice.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 40