Spirit of Leadership

THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP AND PRIORITIES Effective leadership involves the management of one’s priorities. True leaders have learned how to distinguish between what is truly important for their lives and the ful fillment of their purposes and what is an urgent but tem porary need. They have also discovered how to distinguish between options that are good and ones that are best for them. Because of these things, they have narrow agendas and short to-do lists. HOW TO CHOOSE PRIORITIES How do we determine what is really important in our lives? We find a valuable guideline in a statement by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians: “‘Everything is permis sible for me’—but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’—but I will not be mastered by any thing.” We live in an age when, particularly in the United States and the European Union, people have a myriad of choices in regard to their lifestyles, careers, and leisure time. We can do many things, but not everything is constructive to our lives. One of our major responsibilities as leaders is determining what is best for us according to our life’s pur pose and vision. Paul knew about being single-minded in the pursuit of a purpose. In his letter to the Philippians, he wrote, W HAT WE DO DETERMINES WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE BECOME .

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