Expert Ownership Podcast
Expert Ownership Podcast
The Four Spirits of a Leader
As faith-filled entrepreneurs, we're called to be leaders. But what exactly does that mean? And how can we grow as leaders? In today's episode, we dive into the four spirits of a leader and how you can grow in each to become all that God has called you to be.
Enjoy!
All right. So today we are pumped. We've got a nice short little something for you and we're titling it the Four Spirits of a Leader, and David and I have been just so blessed to actually have a dad who showed us what leadership really is. You know, david, and I have said a lot that leadership is the ability to create an appetite in those who follow you. And what is the appetite? When you look at I don't know most of the people that we're talking to are parents. They actually own businesses as well, because we're talking to faith-filled entrepreneurs. If you look at your kids, what type of appetites are you creating in them? That's a humbling question. I tell you that much. In your employees, what type of appetites are you creating them? In your customers, in your vendors, in your clients, what type of appetites are you creating in them? One of our goals when we started our business we had several goals, obviously, but when it came down to leadership was we don't want to just do business with customers and clients, we want to actually lead them. We want to lead them to the cross. And knowing that if you're going to lead somebody to the cross, then we have to conduct ourselves the right way, we have to do good business, and so when I think about leadership, I'm thinking about the ability to create an appetite in those who follow you, and I also think about the level five leader.
Speaker 1:David, how does Jim Collins define the level five leader? Yeah, so Jim Collins, who wrote the book From Good to Great, he said and that's a fantastic book he said the level five leader is the individual that has the perfect mix and the perfect balance of professional will and personal humility. In other words, they have professional will, they will move forward, but it's also mixed with an equal balance of personal humility. Or they have incredible humility, they're super kind and generous, gracious, they're others-focused, they're very empathetic, but it's also mixed with an equal balance of professional will and determination. That's a five-liter.
Speaker 1:I say that my son's coach at Lipscomb. His name is Lenny Johnson and he is a fantastic coach. Lenny Acuff Sorry, lenny Johnson is a different friend. I've got Lenny Acuff, yeah, and he used to tell the kids, the boys. He said I want you to stay humble and hungry. That's a level five leader. You've got ambition, that's your hunger, but you've also got humility. We want you all to ascribe to level five leadership. And so what I wanna discuss today are the four spirits of a leader.
Speaker 1:Now, I got this from a podcast thing that I take in from a guy who's not a believer, but he was talking. He's a great, great coach and leader and you got to understand that all things that you can learn from people, good principles they don't have to be believers for you to learn stuff Well, because wisdom is from the Lord and they actually. I've seen Tony Robbins say certain quotes that are supposedly his straight out of the book of Proverbs. That's 100%. It's like all the science and the research. I love finding all the latest research on stuff that's 100% devoid of biblical truth, because I know that the truth that they're pulling out of that research is biblical truth. They just won't ever say that it is.
Speaker 1:So this guy is teaching something that they pulled from Native American teaching. You know, like Indians, that they call it the four directions. So they would get a bunch of Indian leaders together and they would actually have like this little ceremony where they call in the four directions of, specifically, the winds from the four directions at the start of a gathering to give them wisdom. Okay, and these four directions are actually four spirits and we find them all in the scripture, the four spirits of a leader, and we're going to look through all of these, but let me give you the four right out of the gate, okay the warrior spirit, the healer spirit, the teacher spirit and the visionary spirit. The teacher spirit and the visionary spirit. So, while the native americans might not say jesus christ or whatever, in terms of when they're talking about the four directions, the four spirits they're calling in, we can say that the type of leader that the bible wants you to be are these four. They, the bible, wants you, is constantly calling you to be courageous, to foster the warrior in you.
Speaker 1:The Bible is all about healing the healer spirit. The Bible is all about teaching, teaching people. And the Bible is all about vision. Habakkuk 2.2,. You know, write the vision, make it plain so that he who has it may run. So let's look at each of these.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's the thing is that most of us, actually all of us, tend to gravitate toward one of the four more than the others. We all have a little bit of all four in us, and what we need to do to be a well-rounded leader is nurture our strength. So you might be more warrior than you are teacher. You need to understand that. Nurture your strength but actually work on some of the other three. Yep, and that's interesting in the body of Christ You'll find like the warrior for the Lord and then the healer. And it's not we don't have to go by those terms, but I'm just saying the person that's bent toward the battle and the person that's bent toward the healing. Oftentimes they will butt heads, but they have to see how they can both work together. That's why the Lord, in John, chapter 17, he said unity. He wants us to pray for unity. He wants us to be one as God and the Father, as Jesus and the Father are one, and so that's what's so important about this is that there's a unity amongst these leadership qualities and styles. The first thing that you need to be and this is why I love putting this one on the foundation when it comes to leadership is you need to be a warrior. And what do we mean by this? We're talking about a person of courage. Yep, and you know, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is doing what's right in the face of it.
Speaker 1:David, what's the line you use for David and Goliath? Yeah, david, you know, he, while Saul saw a giant too big to fight. David saw a giant too big to miss and it's that warrior spirit that was inside of David. It's interesting Exodus, chapter 15, was inside of David. It's interesting Exodus, chapter 15, verse 3, says the Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name. Isaiah 42, 13,. The Lord will go forth like a warrior, he will arouse his zeal like a man of war. I mean, this is just crazy. Why would God even say that? Because he knows there's a spiritual battle that's taking place. So, no matter what we're looking at, whether it's politically, economically, with our foreign policy, with our education, whatever, mainstream media, movies, music, whatever, it is a spiritual battle. There's a spiritual battle that's taking place. And because that's the reality we have to understand God is a warrior and he wants us to be warriors.
Speaker 1:And how did David, before he fought Goliath? How did he become that warrior? How did he know that God would come through for him? He had divine perspective. He was faithful when the lion came to take one of the sheep. He was faithful when the bear came to take one of the sheep. He was faithful when the bear came to take one of the sheep and he saw what could happen with a guy who was trained trained with his sling who also has the spirit of God. It's not just relying on the spirit of God, but then not sharpening yourself and getting some skills. You got to get some skills together, but that's what gave him courage was that divine perspective. So you have got to.
Speaker 1:If you want to be the leader that God's called you to be, you have got to be a person of courage. You need to also understand courage is contagious. When a courageous person draws the line in the sand and steps up to meet the challenge, other people want to do the same, and can you imagine nothing better than for us to be able to do that for our kids, for us to be able to do that for our employees and our contractors and our vendors, for them to see us standing with courage? Okay, that's number one. The number one spirit the warrior spirit. Number two spirit of a leader is the healer spirit. Okay Now, if somebody is sick, they need a doctor.
Speaker 1:If someone is captive, they need a warrior. So if someone is sick and they're captive, first you come in with a warrior. You got to free them. You got to free them, but once you free them, you got to heal them. This is where the place of refuge you, as a leader, need to be a place of refuge, of safety, of belonging for the people that you lead. They need to know that you're a warrior. It's like Aslan he wasn't a tame lion, but he was good. Like that's where we come in. We can't just be warrior. We've got to be healers. Like I want to set people free. Why? So I can help heal them. That's right.
Speaker 1:Let me give you Psalm 147.3. This is the Lord. He heals the brokenhearted, he binds up their wounds Psalm 23.3. He restores my soul, he guides me in the paths of righteousness, for his name's sake. So he's a restorer. That's the healer.
Speaker 1:Hosea 6.1. Come, let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us, but he will heal us. He's wounded us, but he will bandage us. That's the God that we serve. That's the spirit of a leader. Yes, and we are healers. That's who we are, and you know what makes us a healer?
Speaker 1:What can turn you from a warrior into a healer is worship. Every good leader has to have those two things at the same time war and worship. Worship and warfare go hand in hand. Okay, so we need that warrior spirit, but as we're worshiping God, we'll recognize that the people that have been set free. We are healers for them. We become a place of safety and refuge. People can come to us. They know we're good. Okay, so we need to be a healer.
Speaker 1:Third, we need to be teachers. We need to be able to teach people. This is where we become a place of learning. We become someone where someone people can go to to learn things, where they can grow in. Become someone where people can go to to learn things, where they can grow in their knowledge, where we can explore things together. It's like as the leader hey, check out this great thing that I learned and you're teaching it to your kids, you're teaching it to your employees and you're bringing them into the learning that you have discovered. We have to be able to teach.
Speaker 1:Give me the scripture, because I was going to ask you what scripture you got. Psalm 25, 12. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose Psalm 32, 8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. And I really love Isaiah, chapter 2. He says this and many people will come and say Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning his ways, that we may walk in the light of his paths. There you go. That's really powerful scripture.
Speaker 1:So we've got the warrior spirit, we've got the healer spirit, we've got the teacher spirit, and the last thing that we need is that visionary spirit. This is the place of ambition and bold horizons, and we know from Habakkuk 2.2 that it says write down the vision, inscribe it on tablets, make it plain so that he who has it may run. Without vision, people perish. We've got to, as leaders, be able to pitch a vision, be able to establish a vision and say all right, guys, here's what I see in the future and here's how I see us getting there. Anxiety is all about projecting fear into the future. You know, anxiety is all about projecting fear into the future. One of the things that we can do as a leader is when we paint a picture, a bright picture of the future for people, it helps cure anxiety. That's why vision is so incredibly important. So it is good to be ambitious, it is good to have bold horizons and to make bold goals and to really shoot for the moon, okay, but we've got to recognize that as we're doing that, we've got to make sure that we're still a healer, we're still teaching people, we're still a warrior and we're casting that vision. And when we have the warrior spirit, the healer, the teacher and the visionary, we're going to see some incredible things happen.
Speaker 1:Did you have another passage for vision? Well, no, I was just. You already quoted Proverbs 29, 18, where there's no vision, the people perish. But it's very encouraging, especially in these last days, when you look at the political context in which we live. You look at the wars, with Israel and now Iran getting involved, and you look at what's China going to do with Taiwan. You look at Russia and the Ukraine and you're like what? Oh my gosh, the inflation Prices are just crazy right now.
Speaker 1:Everything's rattling and going to fall apart, you know, and you can get really desperate, but when we have a vision that, listen, god is in control, he is so faithful and this isn't some mistake that he put you here right now, at this moment in history, and he's not surprised. So the bigger picture is that God is going to restore all things and he wants to use you as a restorer until he returns. So, whether a great awakening happens or, you know, a massive revival breaks out, whatever may happen, or Jesus returns, either way, let Him return to us, being faithful and with that vision that we know all things are going to be restored and that, even if we have to go through pain, god's going to give us grace to handle it. When we're doing His work, when we're doing His business and we do it knowing, fully understanding the counsel and the wisdom of God that we are to be warriors, we are to be healers, we are to be teachers and we are to be those who have vision.
Speaker 1:Man, we can smile. The Bible teaches us that a wise man fears not the sudden disaster that overtakes the wicked. We don't have to fear man, we can—I forgot what Scripture says. He laughs at the things that are to come the book of Job, I think we just finished that but he laughs at people freaking out. God's not concerned about this, and we shouldn't be either. We know we should definitely be good citizens. We should work in our businesses as if our business is going to be here forever. But the Lord's probably going to return quick, I think. But if he doesn't and there's a revival and an awakening. Great If there's not, and he returns. Great, no matter what happens. Great, so we can smile about it and that's really going to put, that's going to relieve anxiety in our children and that's going to definitely put a nice light, light step, a pep in our step.
Speaker 1:So you have all these spirits within you, but some are stronger than others depending on the moment and the context. Okay, and you really want people in your life who bring out these different spirits. Okay, in terms of you got some people in your life that, if you're not a warrior, you need to have some warriors in your life. If you're not a healer, you need to have some healers in your life. You're not a teacher you need some teachers in your life. If you're not a healer, you need to have some healers in your life. You're not a teacher, you need some teachers in your life. If you're not a visionary, you need some visionaries in your life, because they will help you with that. So here's just two questions I'll leave you with which of these four do you do most naturally and which of these four do you need to work on? Which do you do most naturally?
Speaker 1:We know, in the Bible, peter was the warrior. He went and cut off the ear of the one dude that tried to take Jesus. He was going for the head. Okay, so we know he was a natural warrior, but Peter had to learn to be a healer and he couldn't do it apart from the Holy Spirit. And we see Peter and Acts healing. Okay, so all of us do one naturally, and we need to work on the others. So whichever of these is burning bright and you nurture it, but know that we need all four. So be the warrior, be the healer, be the teacher and be the visionary, and then watch the leader that you can become. Amen, that's it.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you to CHM, christian Healthcare Ministries. They've been amazing to us and they've been amazing to a million people, a million different families, or almost a million. That's incredible people, a million different families or almost a million. In the membership. It's growing like crazy. Expert at ownershipcom slash CHM. They've helped us tremendously. So, all right guys, subscribe rate review. Hopefully you enjoyed this. Don't forget to reach out to us. Several of you have already reached out to us about some things we want to cover and all this other stuff. So we're always happy to hear from you and maybe even doing a podcast, and our mastermind that we are doing September 9th through the 11th is full. Actually, I think we have a spot or maybe two left, so if you're still interested, deb at Venom Companies it's for dudes we're calling it a master's mind because we're going to help you get the master's mind on your life and business. So all right, god bless you.