Principle Centered Leadership I

I have made some observations over the years as I have looked at the current state of our world, the dysfunction and impotence of United Nations, the political and ethical dearth in the United States and even political divide in some churches. There is a lack of principle centered leadership among those who want to be considered leaders and are asking others to follow them.

The most influential and principle centered leader known to man is Jesus Christ. He exemplified the power of leadership to create, motivate and channel human energy to change the world for the better. Jesus' principles were established early in this ministry and despite severe opposition and unspeakable persecution, he was able to recruit, train, equip and motivate a diverse band of unlikely men to take on the task of evangelizing the entire known world. The influence of that band is still in effect today.

Principle centered leadership leadership can also be used for negative results. Such leaders as Hitler, Stalin, and Jim Jones come to mind. They stuck to their principles to the detriment of thousands, even millions of followers.

The world has always been looking for leaders to follow. Today's lack of principle centered leadership has resulted in a world of confusion. People posing as leaders conduct opinion polls to determine what they will say in different venues to get votes, raise money and at times even conveniently omit relevant information. The world body established discuss and resolve issues on the world stage, the United Nations, is impotent to resolve problems or even keep the peace. There leadership principles are secular, their members come from the ranks of politically appointed miscreants and despots who desire personal power above finding sound resolutions. The United States congress struggles to address significant and critical issues because members have large staffs who spend their days crafting headline grabbing sound bites to 'shape' public opinion and raise money for their re-election accounts rather than establish principled solutions to the nations challenges.

The national main line media stations and newspapers (even some overseas based outlets) would rather make news than report news even if it means using non-credible sources to substantiate a bad story. Journalists now report for ratings as opposed to report on the facts.

We pass laws to protect women's rights to their bodies while millions of babies are murdered. Later we call a national crisis when older children murder their peers. Unfortunately , the depravity of murdering children in the womb has now gravitated youth murdering youth and parents killing their own children outside the womb.

Leadership without foundational principles leads to confusion, self-centeredness and immorality. The path of least resistance always leads to no resistance, a blowing in the wind. Effective leaders operate from a set of irrevocable pillars that guide them in spite of popular opinion, criticism, setbacks. It drives them to vision and mission. They are not afraid of failure nor do they need the comfort of popular consensus. I'll talk about that in part II.