Servant Leadership

The premise of my book, Grab a Towel, is that servant leadership provides a Christ-centred critique and corrective to much of the leadership that we see in the 21st Century. This is perhaps most apparent when we look at what I propose is the foundation of servant leadership – character. And given so much of what has been taking place on a global scale in recent times and the dearth of servant leadership on display, I felt it was a good time to post this (summarised) excerpt from the book.

The foreman screamed across the shop floor… “Tucker… what the ******* are you doing – you’ll lose a finger”. I immediately realised how stupid I was being… seeking to clear metal shards from the rotating drill with my hand. My safety report that week was somewhat humiliating. Being an apprentice on the shop floor had its ups and downs. This was definitely a low point! But I believe in the principle of apprenticing – I don’t think there’s anything quite like on-the-job training. And this equally applies to being Jesus’ apprentices…

This book is a life-giving corrective to all this, painting a picture of servant leadership that’s both honest about the difficulties, pain and challenges – but also emotionally truthful about the ups and downs and how we might deal healthily with the suffering that is likely to come our way.

It seems to me that part of our expectation of leaders is that they can answer our questions and solve our problems. There is a danger that we want our leaders to be omniscient and fail to recognise that the greatest leaders do not try and be the fount of all knowledge. In fact, I’ve been wondering recently if the power of great leadership rather rests in the ability to ask great questions and to remain curious.

My book, Grab a Towel, argues that the number one priority of servant leaders is to increasingly display the character of Christ.

But how do we grow in the character of Christ? This article looks at the writings of Dallas Willard to give us helpful guidance in this essential area.

My teaching on servant leadership and based upon the book, Grab a Towel, has been incorporated into a nine-part film series airing on Message Live.

King Solomon famously wrote: “Train a child in the way he should go, And he will not easily depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). But when it comes to leadership development, it is hard to find programmes that intentionally invest in emerging young leaders…

The intriguing story of Ebed-Melech. Against all odds, he risked his own neck to show courageous servant leadership…

I gave this message last year at Lighthouse Church in Salford on how we adopt the attitude of Christ. It’s based upon Philippians 2.

I love this quote from George Barna’s book, Master Leaders:

Leadership is motivating, mobilising, resourcing, and directing people to pursue a shared vision that produces positive transformation… Leadership is the identification of noble goals and objectives with such intensity that others are drawn into the process… Leadership is taking people where they are not already going. It is about redefining the possible.

What a great definition of leadership: it is about redefining the possible…

In Acts 6:1-7, we read of the disciples multiplying and new leaders being appointed. Multiplication is the end result of a disciple-making process. This process can be seen in the life of an individual disciple or a ministry leader, or even the church! The end result of this process is mature disciples reproducing themselves into other disciples.

When I look at Christian leadership today, I see a situation akin to that of a dog chasing after a car. When the dog catches up with its target, it does not know what to do with the car because its purpose for chasing was not clearly defined. The absurdity of this situation is best explained by a quote from the late Dr Myles Munroe, who said, “when a purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable.”

Christian Book Discounters (CBD) provide trusted resources for the African market. They have been a primary distributor of Grab a Towel since it’s release in 2018. The following interview has been taken from their website and was conducted with Tim Tucker when Grab a Towel was first released in 2018.

Reading Grab a Towel is not meant to be a purely academic exercise!

Growth in leadership comes through ‘doing life together’– literally, sitting round a table (preferably over a meal or at least a coffee) and engaging deeply, holding one another accountable, and encouraging one another to become more proficient leaders.

If we are to exert godly influence as leaders, then we must prioritise becoming Christ-centred servant leaders which should shape our entire approach to life and ministry… I believe that a critical foundation of servant leadership is that those in leadership see themselves primarily as custodians/stewards. We can get ourselves into all kinds of trouble when we forget this principle.

there is an insidious threat to Christian leaders that looks like we’re putting people first, but it is actually the antithesis of servant leadership. Rather than putting people first, we succumb to the disease of being a people -pleaser.

There’s a scene in the Matrix where Neo first enters the computer generated world and is learning to live counter to what he has been programmed his whole life. He is with his mentor, Morpheus, and they are walking against the tide of hundreds of people on a city’s streets. Morpheus, overcoming the confines of his mind, is able to walk without bumping into anyone – parting the proverbial Red Sea of people. Neo, on the other hand, bumps into everybody and is unable to avoid all the tide of people in his path.

I believe that the experience of a Christ-centred servant leader is more like Neo’s experience than Morpheus’s.

Looking back on highlights from 2018… grabbing towels and becoming Christ-centred servant leaders.

Grab a Towel presents a contrast between two types of leadership: the superhero and the servant. I am constantly reminded of the importance of this distinction – whether considering leadership in politics, business or church ministry.

In Grab a Towel I write that Christ-centred servant leaders need to have ‘steel in their spine’ – the gritty resolve to persevere through all the challenges they face. One way that God develops our grit is through tough circumstances and situations which test our character and strengthen our resolve to follow Him through thick and thin…

The Superhero movie is a film genre that still reliably draws crowds to the cinema. The depiction of a person with superhuman powers, willing to battle for justice against forces of evil, has been a winning formula on screen for over a century. But in recent times I’ve noticed that there has been a significant shift in the way superheroes are portrayed…

Maybe a more critical question for Christian leaders is not ‘are we born leaders’, but, ‘are we effective followers?’ The essential unifying quality of every Christ-centred servant leader is that they are first and foremost a follower…

We live in the age of personal branding and self-promotion… where people are serious about making a name for themselves. How, as Christian leaders, do we avoid the temptation of pride and selfish ambition that can so easily ensnare us?

The following extract is from the book ‘Being the Message’ where Andy Hawthorne (International CEO of The Message Trust) advocates that, in order to avoid the danger of being a people-pleaser, we need to take serving seriously and focus on following the example of Christ…

A common question I’ve been asked since releasing Grab a Towel is, ‘why did you write the book?’ Clearly asking why is always a great question before embarking on an enterprise or project… So maybe it will help you to understand why I wrote Grab a Towel and encourage you to not only read the book, but consider how the concepts in the book should not remain words on a page, but motivate you towards action and change.

I was at work preparing for the launch of Grab a Towel… when a colleague came up to me to ask about the origin of the name. “Oh,” she said – rather disappointedly when I told it was from Jesus’ example in John 13, “I thought it also referred to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. I was intrigued…