Take Two

I was on a conference call the other night with Ambit Energy and a statement was made that really stuck with me. The speaker, who has made a tremendous amount of money as well as built several successful organizations, said that “good followship makes for great leadership”. The nutshell of his thought was that you can’t be a leader if you don’t know how to follow. Jesus, in his interaction with the Roman Centurion, has this principal emphasized. Jesus offers to go to the Centurion’s house to heal his servant and the Centurion tells Him that he also is a man “under authority”. He did not say he had authority but that he was under authority. The implied statement here was that whatever the centurion said was backed by the full might of the Roman Empire. The Centurion also understood that whatever Jesus said was backed by all of Heaven in that He was sent by and in fact was God. The authority however, was based on the ability to submit to a higher authority.

This brings me back to the statement from the call- good followship makes for great leadership. I have worked with a number of great leaders both in business and the ministry and I can say that every single one of them were great followers. They had to learn how to place themselves in submission to another and, by doing so, made the one that they were following greater. This behavior propagates itself among the followers who become leaders in their own right. But the recurring theme was that leaders must know how to first follow. As I mentioned in this post, it was only when I learned to follow that I again began to lead. It’s a fascinating principal.

Anyhow, that’s a random thought for Friday. Outreach tomorrow and then the first extension service on Sunday. Stay tuned!