The Making of a Master Leader (from The Master Leader audiobook by Mark E. Moore)
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This is a modified excerpt from Mark E. Moore’s book, The Master Leader.
Purchase The Master Leader here.
John Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”[1] I’ve tried to argue with that, since it is an absolute statement and absolute statements are seldom true. I’ve tried. But I can’t think of an exception to that rule in any organization, whether civic, religious, or business. Leadership is the fuel of human flourishing in families, churches, tribes, and nations.
It appears that this is by God’s design. It was a king who wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd” (Ps. 23:1). He led the nation; God led the king. In Romans 13:1, the great theologian Paul wrote, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” God designed and designated leaders to care for the world he created.
When leaders carry out God’s will and shepherd his people, the flock flourishes. Not only does everything rise and fall on leadership, but all leaders are God’s leaders, even those who are not godly. Some attain power to guide and guard God’s people, such as David and Moses. Some are raised up by God for discipline or retribution, such as Nebuchadnezzar or Caesar. If you are in leadership, whether in a church, business, or government, it is because God put his hand on you and expects (even demands) you to carry out his will.
If it is your desire to lead on behalf of the Good Shepherd, then this book is for you. I have spent my professional career chasing hard after Jesus. For more than two decades, I taught a course called “The Life of Christ” at Ozark Christian College. Since 2012, I have been a teaching pastor for Christ’s Church of the Valley in Phoenix, Arizona, working with leaders in churches, businesses, and nonprofits. My purpose in writing this book is to introduce you to the leadership principles of Jesus and how they apply to your own leadership context. However, I have never been the point leader of an organization. So to authentically apply these biblical principles, I have asked a colleague of mine to join this project.
Allow me to introduce Jeff Osborne. He has worked as a C-level leader in multiple organizations and has coached hundreds of leaders in the business world. He came on staff with Christ’s Church of the Valley in 2020 as one of our executive pastors. Jeff’s career “crossover” makes him the ideal collaborator. In each chapter, I’ve asked him to address a key question from a C-level leader’s seat. His perspective will be invaluable as you apply the principles of Jesus. I invite you to hear part of Jeff’s story.
As Mark mentioned, my journey of leadership has been filled with successes, failures, and—most of all—lessons. As I share some of these lessons with you in this book, let me start by sharing one of the most important lessons, which is to have the proper leadership mindset.
It was an excellent operational model. I presented it with such conviction. As I sat back down at the intimidating, oversized table in our executive boardroom, the heads of our business division politely nodded and thanked me. Following my presentation, a colleague offered an alternative plan. He received a rousing round of applause.
I had a pit in my stomach. He won. I lost.
You can see the problem. We were on the same team. I chose a scarcity mindset over an abundance mindset. For years, that soundtrack ran on repeat in my head. I’m embarrassed to admit that more than a few times after that meeting, I wished ill on my colleague—that he would fail.
This scarcity mindset robbed me of collaborating with this leader and sharing ideas that would make both our divisions great. I could have celebrated his success and worked to raise my game. We probably could have done some great things together.
Since those days, I’ve worked hard to lead with an abundance mindset, to be a more mature and confident leader who believes there is room for all of us to be successful. Our mindset matters. That’s what this book is all about.
Before we manage others, we must first master the management of ourselves. And that requires a strong and healthy leadership mindset. We must determine the type of leader we want to be—a critical step in leading like the Master. Settle it now: What kind of leader do I want to become? One of the best ways to think about this might be to ask yourself: What do I want my leadership brand to say about me and how I lead others? What do I want to be known for as a leader?
Often, the problem with leadership isn’t that we don’t know how to lead, but rather, that we haven’t clarified the leadership brand for which we want to be known. We simply wing it. I think you’ll agree that when it comes to leadership, “winging it” isn’t a great strategy. Effective and influential leadership demands that we consider deeply the desired impact of our leadership.
We all know leaders whom we deem to be great or who have had significant impact on our lives. We just don’t often think about why they were able to make that level of impact and how we might be able to have a similar effect. Often, we are too busy focusing on the “doing” aspect of leadership and fulfilling our responsibilities to worry about who we are as a leader.
We need Jesus’ model of leadership. Leading like Jesus is not as difficult as it may seem! We have so many examples of both good and bad leaders from a myriad of sources—Scripture, the marketplace, history, and personal experience. Once we develop the values of a Master Leader and begin to act on the values and actions Jesus taught and showed us, we’ll be well on our way to becoming Master Leaders.
To adopt the right leadership mindset—the mindset of Jesus—we must think strategically about the attributes, styles, characteristics, and values we want to exercise in our own personal leadership. This all takes time, focus, and energy—valuable resources few of us have in abundance. What can we do? The first half of the battle of leadership is fought between our ears.
When I was a young, inexperienced leader and wanted to grow in my leadership, I would sit in meetings with high-level leaders and think about how they would respond to a question or a situation. At first, I would get about half the answers right. Over time, it was closer to 75 percent. Eventually, I was able to think like the leaders above me. This mindset training required me to be present in the moment and not merely half-listening to the leadership exchange taking place around me.
Being intentional about the mindset we want to possess as leaders is a helpful exercise for our “leadership muscles.” Our mindset ensures we have spent time thinking through how we want to lead before we find ourselves in the middle of a situation where we can easily be caught off guard. Ask yourself: Do I want to be a leader who’s known for getting things done, or do I want to be a leader who’s known for equipping and empowering others to do great things?Do I want to be a leader others fear or follow? Do I want to be a leader who always has the right answer, or a leader who listens generously to feedback? When you choose the type of leader you want to be, you create a mindset and a mental map to set the course you’ll follow as you lead others. As Christians, Jesus is our model for becoming a Master Leader.
Determining our leadership mindset requires us to be mindful of each situation, which simply means that our leadership style and approach will need to ebb and flow depending on the situation and the people we lead. Most church leaders strive to be servant leaders—providing encouragement, delegating well, or empowering their team. Though we all aspire to be this type of leader, many situations require us to direct, tell, and guide our team, spending less time on collaborating and coaching. Great leaders master servanthood, flexibility, and nimbleness. The best leaders know how to fly at different altitudes depending on the situations or challenges they are required to manage. Determine the kind of leader you desire to be, but remember that leadership is a journey—a muscle group, if you will—and that it will require constant attention, training, and investment to achieve excellence.
Purchase The Master Leader here.
How to Use This Book
Jeff and I sincerely desire that the twelve Master Leader values and actions in this book empower you to be the kind of leader you are called to be as a disciple of Jesus. If you are leading people in any capacity, you likely have a voracious appetite for leadership resources: books, conferences, websites, and podcasts. Perhaps that’s why you picked up this book; you want to grow as a leader. But if you have a line of other leadership books on your shelf, you may be asking, “How is this book any different than the plethora of other offerings?” After all, a wise man once said, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9). Sure enough, the values and actions in these pages are well-worn truths. What makes them unique in this context is their juxtaposition to the life of Jesus.
Our goal is to tie leadership principles to the model of Jesus. After all, he is literally the founding father of servant leadership. Prior to him, there were no leaders who practiced servant leadership or philosophers who advocated for it. By tracing the teachings of Jesus, as well as his actions, we can sleuth the origin of the heart and habits of the Master Leader.
The title of this book, The Master Leader, goes back to the fact that Jesus was the greatest leader of all time. Starting with just a small number of disciples, Jesus made more of an impact on humanity than anyone else in history. He embodied the twelve leadership values and actions of this book better than anyone. Our prayer for this book is that these twelve leadership principles will empower you to have a greater impact than you ever imagined.
Your impact will be in direct proportion to your allegiance to the Master and alignment with him. He’s not merely our personal Master. He is the Master Leader, unmatched in history. Whereas one of my previous books, Core 52, focused on fifty-two Bible passages, this book focuses on twelve leadership principles. Both books, in different ways, point squarely to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Standard leadership books focus on core pillars such as identity, vision, mission, values, strategies, and stewardship. This book will filter these through the model of Jesus. Whether you lead a church, a ministry, a nonprofit organization, or a marketplace venture, if you want to lead like Jesus, this book will help you identify the original values and actions of the Master and apply them in a contemporary context.
I’ve broken the book into two main parts. Part 1, “The Values of a Master Leader” (chapters 1 through 6), looks at six characteristics of a Christian leader, and Part 2 looks at the actions of a Master Leader—how those values can be practiced in the rough and tumble of our leadership roles.
Leadership begins with integrity (chapter 1), not merely doing the right thing, but being the right person. Who we are comes from what we believe about ourselves. When we look at the life of Jesus, we discover that his integrity came from his revolutionary idea that God was his Father. His Father’s love, approval, and calling gave him the courage to live consistently according to God’s agenda. This can be you too. The second characteristic is servanthood (chapter 2). Jesus expressed this in his relentless and unique self-designation: “Son of Man.” His ability to serve and suffer as the Son of Man came from his confidence in his Father. Chapters 1 and 2 explore our identity as leaders, providing both confidence and humility.
Because Master Leaders are under God’s authority, they aren’t really masters, but servants. They are not rulers who wield power, but stewards (chapter 3) of what God has entrusted to them. Jesus demonstrated how to steward all the resources God entrusted to him. It went well beyond material resources to include people, time, and communication. But no one can steward God’s resources well without being consistent (chapter 4). That comes through habits, what the church fathers called “disciplines.” Though we have nothing like a comprehensive list of Jesus’ disciplines in the Gospels, what we do have is telling. He addressed two priority habits: prayer and Sabbath. While there are plenty of other habits leaders should master, these two are particularly important to Jesus for leading a life of balance.
In chapter 5 we’ll focus on Jesus’ primary value of love, which I am calling “caring.” It drove all his actions, up to the cross. It was the primary command that summarized all the Mosaic law. But values without behaviors are just plaques on a wall. The final character value of a Master Leader is nimbleness (chapter 6). By tapping into the shepherding practices of leaders in the Bible, particularly the ones we see through Jesus’ ministry, we can see how to move adroitly and adjust with agility to confront the challenges that face the flock.
In Part 2, “The Actions of a Master Leader” (chapters 7 through 12), we examine some tactical behaviors that will grow both the depth and breadth of your church or organization. After all, the health of the group always starts with its leader. We begin in chapter 7 with the specific actions that embedded Jesus’ primary value of love into real-world situations through practicing mercy and inclusion. This is precisely how organizations build culture.
Chapter 8 addresses casting vision. That is your main role as a leader—to cast a compelling vision of a preferred future. Jesus’ vision, in a nutshell, was to restore Eden. That is precisely what will happen someday in the new heaven and the new earth. But in the meantime, Jesus set out to bring a bit of heaven to earth as a precursor of things to come. In chapter 9 we look at how we develop strategy and how Jesus adopted the shepherding metaphor for his own role. The shepherd’s duties are still a good template of what we could (read “must”) do in our organizations. Leaders lead, feed, heal, and protect the flock. Developing strategies around those priorities keeps us focused.
In chapter 10 we examine what it looks like to focus priorities with Jesus’ vision of God’s kingdom. His focus models for us the importance of keeping our “main thing” the main thing. His effectiveness shows us the importance of doing less to get more done. In chapter 11 we observe that leaders prefer taking action over discussion. So did Jesus. In fact, his final words on earth were a proactive commission, sending his followers to establish his kingdom globally. That’s a task larger than any of us, which leads us to our final chapter.
We need to mentor leaders (chapter 12). This ultimately means we make our own disciples in order to carry on the mission. Jesus had his Twelve, and they passed the torch to those who traveled with them. Down the line it went, until here we are today.
You are a leader following in the steps of the Master. My goal in writing this book is not simply that you would become a great leader, but that you would be a Master Leader—leading like and leading for the one who initiated this whole thing we call servant leadership.
In each chapter, I offer three consistent building blocks, opening each with a tangible example of the principle we are addressing. This will pull the principle from the philosophical ether and ground it in our present reality. My hope is that you can use these stories or ones like them to help your team see the relevance of your training on these topics.
Also, each chapter answers a specific question that leaders face. I invited Jeff, whom I introduced above, to write these sections so you can hear from an experienced leader who has spent significant time leading in the marketplace. You will feel the significance of his contributions in these practical sections of each chapter. He speaks authentically and experientially to the issues you face at the top of your team.
Following Jeff’s contribution, I tap into my twenty-two years of Bible college teaching on the life of Jesus, mining for leadership principles. My goal is to summarize and synthesize the jewels of the Master’s leadership and present them to you, polished and ready to set in the gold studs of your own leadership setting. We’re not just looking for quotes and quips. We are finding patterns in Jesus’ leadership that are both repeatable and transferable. This is what sets The Master Leader apart from other excellent leadership books. I filter legitimate biblical scholarship through a leadership lens to give you an executive summary of the historical Jesus. Our hope is this approach will help inform and ground you in the values and practices of Jesus that most impact your leadership decisions and leadership style.
Your leadership is a gift from God and a responsibility to him. The marketplace is full of great resources and good advice. Like you, Jeff and I have used and benefited from them. As Christians, however, we have a Master who stands above all kings and CEOs. His path to achievement and success is different, sometimes counterintuitive. To lead like him—to become a Master Leader—doesn’t just encompass the highest stakes. It includes the highest privileges.
Purchase The Master Leader here.
Note: [1] John Maxwell, Developing the Leaders Around You: How to Help Others Reach Their Full Potential (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 6.
