The Heart of a Leader

Proverbs 4:23 (MSG) Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts.

Effective leadership is a heart issue. The “heart” is where feelings, behavior, attitudes, hidden thoughts live. It is where “life starts.”

Scripture also teaches that the heart is very wicked and deceitful - so much so, it can fool us. That's why it must be guarded. The older I get, the more I understand how much personal discipline it really takes to become a "person after God's own heart."

Not guarding the heart allows it to wander, and it is very easily done - especially in a culture that stimulates the prurient as the driver for purchasing almost anything today. Interesting word – prurient – comes from the Latin meaning “to itch.”

People at work often times are put in situations that can breed “prurient pondering.” Behaviors have changed. The unintended consequences of how people dress, what the joke about, and what they notice sometimes creates an “itch” that we scratch by “pondering.”

Effective leaders think of others before thinking of self (prurient pondering is innately selfish!) This kind of leadership demands a humble heart, which takes effort on our part and that effort is focused on guarding our heart – keeping the pondering in check.

To become better prepared for work, do you spend as much time reading the Word as you do the Harvard Business Review? The former, aimed at filling the heart with God-thoughts, will not only yield more than the latter about the issues of life, but also will make implementing insights from HBR more effective. Their articles can be helpful, but even more so when you see how research lines up so often with Biblical principles.

Are you disciplined for leadership?

Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell