Monday, June 2, 2014

A Flock of Leaders: Leadership as Influence

Leadership is influence. This is the definition that the pastor of an evangelical Christian mega-church enunciated in a sermon that took up nearly the entire service on the Sunday morning of my visit. Parents, teachers, students, and artists—all and many others—the cashiers at Walmart—are leaders, according to the pastor. “You need to get over the hurdle,” he charged, “of thinking that leadership only applies to kings and people on stages.” As influence, leadership applies to virtually anyone—all of us. Populism was the real message. “A kingdom is actually any place of influence,” he added. Everyone is a king in his or her own kingdom by virtue of simply having influence.