When looking at the issue of leadership one of the looming questions over it is, “Why is there a need for leadership.” A leader answers the question of need and there is need because something is not being met. One of the most basic needs for a leader is the need to step beyond themselves, take a gamble and take risks. Whether it is the risk of being ignored or ostracized by their peers or the risk of failure down the road, the risk needs to be made.
Much of the idea of risk taking I covered in the previous blog but there is always something more to add. In looking at the third chapter of Truth and Transformation one of the biggest risks one could take in the East is the fight for family values. In a culture where having several mistresses is a norm, my hat goes off to those men who lay down their lives and honor their spouses. In such misogynistic cultures, the place of honoring and respecting one’s wife can lead to being cast out of the community and have social and economic ramifications.
Love in and of itself is a huge risk. When a man wants to pursue a woman rightly he has to open up his heart and lay it on the line nearly from the get-go. This is an enormous risk. It is one of those things that is best modeled by Christ who continually opens his heart up not just to the world but to his bride and time and time again is ignored or trampled.
Leading in this capacity is not for the faint of heart and is not for those whose primary goal in life is comfort. It is an embracing of the unknown and an opening of the heart with the chance for success or pain. In today’s day and age one thing dearly needed is courage accompanied with the willingness to fail and the willingness to be hurt in order to see change happen. Leadership is not about fighting for a place to receive the accolades of man, rather it is the laying hold of that which terrifies and confounds many.
