Spiritual Leadership - A MinistryLift Recommended Book
“Spiritual leadership is moving people unto God’s agenda” (p. 36). In their 2011 expanded revision of Spiritual Leadership, Henry and Richard Blackaby have done a masterful job of calling Christian leaders to refocus on God and His agenda while giving many practical tools for helping them move people according to God’s leading. They have integrated Scripture and contemporary ideas about leadership throughout the book while bringing their ideas to life through many engaging stories. Despite a few underlying assumptions that some readers might find unsettling, the book is a thought-provoking and practical read for both seasoned and emerging leaders alike.
Henry and Richard Blackaby, in their expanded revision of Spiritual Leadership published in 2011, contend that “leadership occurs when you move people from where they are to where they ought to be” as God leads. A strong theme throughout the book is that leaders who want to lead in God-honouring ways must hear from God and obey His voice. Spiritual leadership necessitates an intimacy with God that allows leaders to hear from Him as they make decisions throughout the day. The authors state that “the most crucial objective for any leader is personal growth” (p. 51). A major strength of the book is its strong call to recapture a high view of God’s role in guiding Christian leaders – a role sometimes dominated by human reasoning and leadership best practices.
Spiritual Leadership successfully integrates theological reflection with practical application. It has a robust theoretical foundation built on Scripture and insights from the leadership literature. Yet, the book is also very practical. The authors devote chapters to important leadership topics such as the character of spiritual leaders, how God prepares leaders, making decisions, building teams, getting and communicating vision, and the pitfalls of leadership. As I read the book, I found myself re-examining my own leadership theology and some of my leadership practices. I felt a longing to lead with a deeper form of spiritual leadership. I found myself thinking about how I might lead differently in the future. I suspect that the book would deeply challenge the thinking of most Christian leaders and would give them tools that they can readily use to strengthen their leadership.
The Blackaby’s use many captivating stories to bring concepts to life. Unfortunately, most of the characters in these stories are male. I also noted that the authors often used American presidents as examples, which gave the book a decidedly U.S.-centric feel . At times, they also relied on military heroes to portray their points, which some readers may find distracting.
The tone of the book sometimes felt overly prescriptive (e.g. these are the six things leaders must do to build leadership teams). Those who prefer a less dogmatic writing style may feel pushed to embrace frameworks that may not adequately account for the complexities of their leadership context or accommodate their own personal leadership beliefs and preferences.
From a theological vantage point, I noted that the authors seem to take a narrow view of how we acquire wisdom to make the best decisions as leaders. They contend that we need to hear God’s voice or see where God is already working and join him there. I agree that we need to hear and obey God as He speaks through Scripture. We must respond appropriately to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We need to hear God speaking through the wise counsel of others. Yet, the Blackaby’s seem to minimize the importance of leadership practices such as strategic planning. I would concur with them that methods can sometimes move our focus away from God and unto the methods themselves or the resultant outcomes. We can perform a perfunctory prayer at the start of a strategic planning process and then ask God’s blessing upon our plans at the end. However, when mature and wise Christians prayerfully engage in strategic planning and other leadership-related processes, I believe that God can use them to reveal His wisdom.
The notion that we should observe where God is working and join him there is a popular one in North American Christian thought due, in part, to the success of Henry Blakabys’ book, Experiencing God. Obviously, seeing where God is working may indicate that God wants us to assist in that area. Yet, I did not find that Spiritual Leadership adequately accounted for the possibility that God might lead us into places where we do not observe Him working in a noticeable way. Alternatively, Christian leaders may find themselves surrounded by evidence of God’s activity. In this kind of situation, God may want us to be selective about where we join Him so that our efforts might have the greatest impact. Seeing where God is working may be an important indicator of where we should invest our energies, but I would posit that it is only one of many possible indicators that can show us God’s leading.
Even though I enjoyed reading the latest version of Spiritual Leadership, I got the impression that parts of the book are a reaction to the excessive emphasis many Christian leaders place on strategic planning and other leadership “best practices.” In some cases, it felt like the authors went too far in discounting or minimizing practices that may help spiritual leaders discern and apply God’s wisdom. However, the call to focus on God and His agenda is a timely reminder that spiritual leadership is primarily about what God wants to accomplish through us.
Spiritual Leadership is a challenging and helpful resource that God can use to take you deeper as a leader and make you more effective in your leadership efforts.
Note: This review was originally published by Randy Wollf in the MB Herald magazine (http://mbherald.com/spiritual-leadership).