Leadership Aroma
Everyone has a natural aroma, whether good or bad, you can only disguise it with cologne and perfumes for a short while. A lot of time to get rid of the bad aroma we have to use good ole soap and water.
Just like your natural aroma, we have a leadership aroma. Sometimes we stink and try to hide it with seminars and books, but after awhile it wears off and we stink again. In order to really get of that stink we need something stronger like soap. One of the challenges of being a leader is willing to get to root cause of your bad aroma; your ego.
You cannot hide your ego with just books and seminars because ego is a heart thing. One thing I have noticed about great leaders is that helping others succeed is a life style not just something they do every now and then.
This can be a challege to some because it is a lot easier to put on some “perfume” and and smell good for a short while, but it is a lot more difficult to “clean your whole body.” It is a challege to all, and I see myself in it right now. I really believe you figure it out over night because it can take be a long proccess with many realizations and fixings. And sometimes we do not realize we stink and takes someone else to let us know.
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I really enjoyed this post, and enjoyed the metaphor of our “leadership aroma”. We truly have to WANT others to participate in leading, not just so that we can notch up our own ego even more, or so that we can finally get that promotion we’ve been waiting for. I think a lot of pastors are fixated on quick fixes to church staff and volunteering problems because they are not interested in a long term investment into the discipleship of others. I know I wasn’t.
But what does this “soap” look like? Maybe its the paradigm shift that “I am not the center of this universe”. Maybe its the heart change Jesus was talking about when he said, “Whoever wants to be first will be last, and whoever is last shall be first.”
I’d be interested in you writing more on this topic.