Servant leadership is a journey, not a destination. You are not born a servant leader, nor do you become one overnight. I believe, however that God desires all of us to be on the journey towards servant leadership.  (Mark 10:43-45)

Leaders participating in Triune Leadership Services’ Year 5/6 Leadership Roundtable are currently working on understanding themselves as leaders. There are a number of facets to this process, one of which is looking at your life’s journey or experiences. This is helpful in understanding how you currently lead, and where you might want to focus your efforts in developing yourself as the servant leader that God created you to be.

It is extremely interesting when you document your life experiences and look back at how God has prepared you for servant leadership. When you are in the midst of the journey sometimes you may not realize what is happening. When looking back, it becomes clear.

As I look back at my personal life experiences by decade, I see the following:

• 1960’s – My parents and extended family modeled the way for servant leadership for me. They provided the groundwork for my faith.
• 1970’s – I learned about high performing teams from my athletic and academic endeavors up through high school and college. I started to lean on Jesus for my guidance in all areas of my life.
• 1980’s – I was given some incredible leadership opportunities that were significantly outside of my qualifications. I relied on Jesus and allowed Him to guide my ways.
• 1990’s – I continued to focus on building high performing teams and received expanded business responsibilities. I was fortunate to have great role models as leaders. I had the opportunity to expand my education to aid my development.
• 2000’s – I started working with my first business leadership coach, and doing some significant reading about culture and servant leadership. I came to realize that Jesus was the ultimate role model as I studied the Bible with a lens of looking at Jesus as a leader.
• 2010’s – I built an actionable model of servant leadership based on how Jesus led to share with others. I founded a business to enable me to be the leader God created me to be by sharing my experiences and knowledge about servant leadership.

God has been working on His purpose for me since I came into this world. I see the experiences He has provided have been intentional. I’ve had some amazing mentors and coaches along the way. I’ve had the opportunity to lead 1000’s of people in numerous situations and businesses to figure out what works.

All this has led to my latest adventure. For the last two years I have been writing a book about servant leadership. I wanted to share what God has equipped me with over the last six decades. You will be seeing more on this in the weeks and months to come as it is set to launch in late September.

What has God orchestrated in your life as a leader? As a parent? As a community member? What are you doing to intentionally continue to develop into the servant leader that God created you to be?

Mark

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13