"What is your style of leadership?" This is a common question pastoral search teams often ask potential Senior Pastor candidates. Regardless of the man, biblical leadership has many common ingredients. Having said that, each leader is wired differently, processes things differently, and inspires his people differently. I was reminded of this while reading a post by an older pastor/friend of mine (Don Green).
Over the past few weeks Pastor Green has posted various stories about his time at Grace To You and GCC related to his former boss/mentor, Pastor John MacArthur. I thought this was an informative and helpful blog post about different kinds of leadership “styles.” The following article provides some helpful insights that we can all no doubt benefit from.
"John MacArthur taught me a lot about leadership.
His track record at Grace Community Church, Grace to You, The Master’s University, The Master’s Seminary, his writings, and other things too numerous to mention establishes conclusively that the man knows how to lead people and organizations effectively.
To sit under his teaching is one thing, and is obviously the way most people “know” him.
To work under him is something different. He has a unique style of leadership that takes time and patience to grasp. So. Phil Johnson promoted me into the administration of Grace to You in 1999. In time, I became the managing director and held that position until I left Grace to You in April 2012.
It’s not from false modesty that I say this: I was not a natural fit for secondary leadership responsibilities in a John MacArthur organization. I was a former attorney, trained to do things by the book. My prior career taught me to anticipate problems and prevent them.
Caution and planning were key tools of the profession. I was a bean-counter.
It’s not from false modesty that I say this: I was not a natural fit for secondary leadership responsibilities in a John MacArthur organization. I was a former attorney, trained to do things by the book. My prior career taught me to anticipate problems and prevent them.
Caution and planning were key tools of the profession. I was a bean-counter.
John’s leadership is different. He is decisive. Out of nature and necessity, he makes quick decisions that sometimes he will change later. “The key to leadership is good second decisions,” I recall him saying.
When he reverses course, you need to go with the flow, not object with, “You said the opposite last month.”
It’s no insult to John’s stature to say that, at times, that frustrated me. I wasn’t wired that way.
John taught me that I needed to change through his book Twelve Ordinary Men (2002). What he wrote about Philip stopped me cold (pp. 121, 125):
“It seems Philip was a classic ‘process person.’ He was a facts-and-figures guy—a by-the-book, practical-minded, non-forward-thinking type of individual. He was the kind who tends to be a corporate killjoy, pessimistic, narrowly focused, sometimes missing the big picture, often obsessed with identifying reasons things can’t be done rather than finding ways to do them. He was predisposed to be a pragmatist and a cynic—and sometimes a defeatist—rather than a visionary.
“It seems Philip was a classic ‘process person.’ He was a facts-and-figures guy—a by-the-book, practical-minded, non-forward-thinking type of individual. He was the kind who tends to be a corporate killjoy, pessimistic, narrowly focused, sometimes missing the big picture, often obsessed with identifying reasons things can’t be done rather than finding ways to do them. He was predisposed to be a pragmatist and a cynic—and sometimes a defeatist—rather than a visionary.
“Whether officially or unofficially, he seems to have been the one who was always concerned with organization and protocol. He was the type of person who in every meeting says, ‘I don’t think we can do that’—the master of the impossible. And apparently, as far as he was concerned, almost everything fit into that category.”
Man. THAT was hard to read, even though John didn’t aim it at me (as far as I know!).
I moped about that for days. “I’m just trying to do things properly and in order!” But eventually I came to realize: as usual, John was right.
His book held a mirror to me. I was initially a Philip at Grace to You. I’m sure John saw that in me even though he graciously never said a word to me about it.
The fact that I didn’t like what I saw wasn’t John’s fault. I needed to change if I had aspirations for a greater sphere of leadership.
Have I? Eh, maybe a little. In the words of Popeye the Sailor Man, “I yam who I yam.”
There are wistful moments when I wonder what would have happened if I were more like John MacArthur and less like Philip. That question is unanswerable.
There are wistful moments when I wonder what would have happened if I were more like John MacArthur and less like Philip. That question is unanswerable.
But the fact that I even ask it shows the single most strategic lesson I personally gained from John MacArthur. It came from a book, yes, but even more from his life.
Great leaders don’t manage process. They influence people."
