Book Report-Healthy Leaders

by Keith Yoder

This book is loaded. I read it a number of years ago and read it again a few weeks ago. I am not sure how to summarize it so I will just copy some quotes to make you interested enough to go out and buy the book. You cannot borrow mine.

"Leaders who are effective have a healthy sense of individuality. An effective leader is one who has a clear sense of identity as a person because he has an intimate relationship with his heavenly Father. The Lord Jesus embodied healthy individuality throughout His entire ministry. If we want to lead the way the Lord wants us to, we need to embrace this important principle of leadership."

"Love needs to be our primary motivation in leadership. We need to love unconditionally, as Jesus did."

"Since we cannot cut ourselves off entirely from our past, we cannot ignore our roots, or take them lightly. We need to look honestly at every part of our experience-even the painful ones-and face who we are. We should never deny where we came from or despise our roots. To do so would be foolish. We need to acknowledge where we came from, accept it for what it is, and build and grow from it. "

"When we sign up for leadership, we sign up to deal with problems. Leadership is not merely an honorary position. Much of leadership is being involved in the lives of people, complete with problems...To solve problems, one must have a measure of decisiveness. Our ability to be decisive is linked to the clarity of our identity."

"Notice Jesus did not cease to be a teacher and master while He washed their feet."

"We must not depend upon people liking us in order to know who we are and to feel good about God's calling on our lives. If we are subject to the reactions of those we lead, we will not lead well.'"

Well, that's only from the first half of the first chapter. All of us are leaders somewhere.
This is a book to read and reread.