The things that distinguish leaders who run with horses from those who walk with footmen, those who shuffle along under the anointing (Jeremiah Chapter 12 Verse 5), is their ability as leaders to live a life of purpose that stretches beyond their own time. This ability allows them to implement a succession plan by recruiting and growing future leaders to become giants: leaders of great purpose and direction for the Kingdom of God. Historian Clay Jenkinson wrote: "To understand Jefferson, you need to know that he was a collector of protégés. He could never have achieved what he did without able-bodied men." Jefferson's success was largely due to collecting protégés.
Editor's Comment: The following article is presented with permission of Dr. Tony Keys and is one of a series of heavily edited excerpts from his books on leadership.
"If you have run with footmen and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses?" Jeremiah Ch 12:5
Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States of America, is remembered not so much for his presidency but for his work as a legislator in developing the guidelines for democratic government that still today influence free nations. It was said of him by the historian Clay Jenkinson:
"To understand Jefferson, you need to know that he was a collector of protégés. He could never have achieved what he did without able-bodied men." Jefferson's success was largely due to collecting protégés.
The lasting future of any organization depends upon the principle of succession. Therefore, one of the key issues of leadership is the ability to identify, develop and retain talented leaders who understand and exemplify the organization's unique culture and vision whilst at the same time lead the organization to a new level of growth.
The things that distinguish leaders who run with horses from those who shuffle along is their ability to live a life of purpose that stretches beyond their own time. They have the ability to recruit and grow future leaders who will be leaders of great purpose and direction for the Kingdom of God.
Before the principles of succession can become part of the culture of the organization, the leaders themselves must go through a maturing process where they move from being a charismatic revolutionary leader to a great reformer: a transformational leader.
'Growing Future Leaders': (The Enormous Potential of Followers') explores the power of mentoring and coaching, and offers strategies for identifying and accelerating the growth of high-potential followers and future leaders.
When faced with the responsibility of leading your organization into the future by developing leaders for that future, may you boldly proclaim, "I will run with horses!"
Is Your Organization one of Dwarfs or Giants?
Being anointed for office is not enough!
When God challenged Jeremiah (Jer Chapter 12 Verse 5), that challenge was for Jeremiah to build commitment in the things of God; to build enormous volumes of stamina. Running with horses takes a lot of energy. God had provided Jeremiah with anointing to be a prophet and now expected something from him. He is to demonstrate the heroism of endurance and live a life of purpose far beyond that which he thinks he is capable of living. Being anointed for office is not enough.
Paul Corrigan1 in his analysis of Shakespeare's play "Richard II" raises the question, "Is being king enough?" Richard begins life as a young ruler believing that it is enough to be anointed as king. In fact, in the third act of the play, Richard makes this statement:
"Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off from an anointed King."
Throughout the play, Richard believes that people owe him allegiance because he is anointed; that 20,000 men and a host of angels will appear at his defense. None of this eventuates. By the end of Shakespeare's play, Richard II is seen as a weak, lonely leader who lacks a strong sense of direction.
Richard II - lost in the position of charismatic leadership - did not recognize that though he was anointed as leader of his people, there is an expectation that comes with that anointing. The expectation is there that a leader will grow future leaders. David Ogilvy, head of Ogilvy & Mather, would give each of his new managers a set of Russian nesting dolls, the type you unscrew or pull apart to find a slightly smaller doll inside until you end up with a tiny wooden doll the size of a thumb. He would then say to the new managers,
"If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs, but if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, Ogilvy and Mather will become a company of giants." Ogilvy and Mather is today one of the largest marketing and advertising companies in the world and has over 359 offices located in over ninety countries.
One of the things that distinguishes leaders who run with horses from those who shuffle along under the anointing, is their ability to recruit and grow future leaders of great purpose and direction for the Kingdom of God.
For leaders of change to successfully raise-up leaders who will continue the legacy they have created, they need to understand the importance and dynamics of succession. The thought of succession presents enormous challenges to a dynamic change leader who is leading an organization through the whole process of change. In light of the many difficulties facing leaders, succession is often left out of the equation. It is simply too hard.
In leadership development, there is a term employed that summarizes the cause-and-effect relationship between a leader and a protégé. It is called the Pygmalion and Galatea Effect and is based on the principles operating in an ancient Greek legend as seen in the play, "Pygmalion."
This cause-and-effect relationship between 'leader and protégé' can easily be seen in the Bible in the lives of such people as King David and Moses. But for that discussion, you will have to wait until next time.
May God Bless You and your leadership.
Dr. T. Keys.
1Corrigan, Paul 1999, Shakespeare on Management, Kogan Page
The Pygmalion effect was described by J. Sterling Livingston in the September/October, 1988 Harvard Business Review. "The way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them" the Galatea effect means that the individual's opinion about his ability and his self-expectations about his performance largely determine his performance. About.com Guide
Growing Future Leaders - The Enormous Potential of Followers - Published 2006 by CRS Publishing, Unit 9, 147 Marshalltown Rd, Grovedale, Victoria 3216, Australia.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the NKJV Holy Bible
Copyright 2013 is held by the nominated authors on this article page.
An example of the failure of directive leadership to bring about transformational can be found in Mikhail Gorbachev's 'Perestroika'. Following decades of communist oppression, the nation was largely comprised of passive, conformist and pragmatist followers who lacked any form of initiative or sense of responsibility. Gorbachev failed to see that this group of people needed a directive style of leadership - a leader who would tell them exactly what to do. He was unable to collectively mobilize his future leaders to implement his vision of change.
The supportive behavior of the leader, both emotionally and with the use of planned training programs, will significantly improve the followers' commitment to the organization. When tasks are tedious, monotonous and boring the follower looks for a leader who shows not only kindness and an understanding attitude but also one who creates harmony in the working environment by providing needed resources, emotional support and rewards.
Collecting protégés enables all leaders to achieve far more than they could on their own and their influence extends far beyond their own realm and lifetime. It is vitally important that leaders be collectors of protégés. Growing future leaders is not for prima donnas. It requires more than just the anointing for the position of leadership. It requires stamina and commitment
Transformational leadership is the ability to bring together leaders and followers in agreement and relationship, empowering them to create an intended real transformational change. This is seen so magnificently in the leadership of Deborah, someone in that relationship who had a heart for the people. What most of us fail to realize is the far-reaching consequences of this agreement. Deborah's heart for the people not only galvanized a relationship and an agreement between herself and Barak but it also galvanized a relationship and an agreement between the followers and leaders of Israel to create an intended real transformational change.
Exemplary followers are courageous followers. Unlike the passive followers, they assume responsibility for their own behavior and its impact upon the organization. Unlike conformist followers, they feel comfortable about drawing the leader's attention to any action the leader might be doing that would or could hurt the organization's direction. Exemplary followers seek out the needs of the organization and actively find ways to serve those needs, unlike pragmatist followers who are always looking out for themselves. Exemplary followers courageously support their leader through the difficult stages of transformational change rather than displaying the alienated followers' cynical attitude to change.
Encountering the narcissistic and succession syndromes cannot be avoided in leadership. It is the way we deal with the dark-side of our narcissistic personality, the way in which we learn from it, that becomes the maturing process required in order to become a transformational leader. This maturing process allows the charismatic revolutionary leader to be resurrected with the great gift of grace - charisma. Queen Elizabeth the First's ability to create on-going transformational change was due to her ability to engage in covalent activities with those around her and to groom and provide a successor to the throne.
In succumbing to the dark-side of leadership, charismatic revolutionary leaders become the very thing they detested in the previous leadership: people who holds on to the status quo, jealously guarding what they have established. Charismatic revolutionary leaders who are extreme narcissists will surround themselves with subordinates who are loyal and uncritical. They make decisions without gathering adequate information. The lack of debate and open discussion will make the leadership team vulnerable to what they don't know which will often result in missed steps in the decision-making process
Charismatic and transformational leaders are superb masters of the art of public speaking to stir followers' dissatisfaction with their present situation and instil a sense of 'correctness', a moral striving to a higher level of social change. Permanent change however cannot take place solely because of the charismatic and transformational leader's vision, self-confidence and rhetorical skills. The vision firstly needs to correspond with the followers' needs and values. Secondly, the vision needs to be reinforced by actions of self-sacrifice that demonstrate the leader's commitment to the vision. Only then will the rainmaker become an agent of change. Once the charismatic revolutionary leader's task has been completed, unless they mature into transformational leaders they will either be challenged and remove or fall prey to the dark-side of leadership.
Charismatic and transformational leaders, by their personalities and natures, are agents of change characterized by a restless energy to create, by a constant sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Their impulsiveness and impatience for change cause them to continually seek out new opportunities and new ways of doing things. Charismatic and transformational leaders' creativity, inspiration, insight and vision allow them to exhibit their tremendous capabilities in creating enormous change in an organization.
The things that distinguish leaders who run with horses from those who walk with footmen, those who shuffle along under the anointing (Jeremiah Chapter 12 Verse 5), is their ability as leaders to live a life of purpose that stretches beyond their own time. This ability allows them to implement a succession plan by recruiting and growing future leaders to become giants: leaders of great purpose and direction for the Kingdom of God. Historian Clay Jenkinson wrote: "To understand Jefferson, you need to know that he was a collector of protégés. He could never have achieved what he did without able-bodied men." Jefferson's success was largely due to collecting protégés.
An interim pastor is someone who helps fill the role of minister at your church by maintaining stability and keeping the church on course with its vision in the brief absence of the senior pastor, or guides the church through the time transition period while the church is searching for a new pastor. The longer you will go without a pastor, the greater your need will be for an interim pastor.
I have always admired his courage and fortitude, especially in the face of adversity, and I know he has faced quite a bit of that in his life, especially from a certain denominational church that resented the fact that so many of 'their people' preferred to study in Pastor Tony's college rather than their own denominational college.
Definition: King's Calendar Chronological Research
The Premise: Between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE (but continuing down to at least 104 BCE), Sectarian redactors transcribed the legitimate 'solar year' chronological records of Israel and Judah, into an artificial form, with listed years as each comprised of 12 months of 4 weeks of 7 days, or 336 days per year, thus creating a 13th artificial year where 12 solar years existed.
When the Synchronous Chronological Data provided in the Books of Kings and Chronicles for the Divided Kingdom Period are measured in years of 336 days, the synchronisms actually align. [Refer to Appendix 5. to see how it synchronises the Divided Kingdom Period]
About the KingsCalendar Publisher
R.P.BenDedek is the owner and Editor of KingsCalendar.com which was originally set up to publicize his research results into the Chronology of Ancient Israel. Those results were published under the title: 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran'.
Whilst there have been many attempts to solve the chronological riddle of the Bible's synchronisms of reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah and their synchronism with other Ancient Near Eastern Nations, no other research is based on a simple mathematical formula which could, if it is incorrect, be disproved easily. To date, no one has been able to dismiss the mathematical results of this research.
Free to air Academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
During the current economic downturn, this book has been drastically reduced in price but will eventually rise as the economy improves.
Check the Chapter Precis Page to see details of each chapter and to gain access to the Four Free to Air Chapters
R.P. BenDedek writes social commentaries and photographic 'Stories from China' both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing columnist at Magic City Morning Star News in Maine USA.
(He has been teaching Conversational English in China since 2003 and currently (2013) is teaching in Suzhou City Jiangsu Province.)
