According to James and Barry, (2004) leadership is an attribute that is only associated with those people who hold top positions in the community and the rest of the people are doomed to the incompetence of leadership. The authors used Jesus Christ’s life experience as a suitable example of the indispensable teaches or lesson for a good leader. In other terms, leadership is the ability or procedure to which an individual becomes a “lifelong learner”. The article discourages the dominance of the individual with the top position and advocates for a leadership team along people’s abilities. For effective and efficient leadership system, it should comprise of five practices. The first practice that promotes exemplary leadership is that a person is required to model the way for others in order to assist them do extraordinary activities or things. The second practice is inspiring for the sharing of vision. It allows room for expansion or diverse in terms of ideologies. Sharing a vision would enable other people that shares in a same idea to attain leadership skills. The other practices include a challenge in the leadership process, enabling other people to act or respond adequately to the challenges facing them and encouraging of the hearts which are broken by the challenging situations. These themes indicate or give a direct reflection on the way Christian faith support and in other cases informs leadership in the society. It clearly outlines the role played by the Christian leaders in the community. The leaders sensitize the people in the society on the importance of understanding the dynamics around the entire concept of leadership relationship.
In Romans 16: 1-15 apostle Paul’s life as leader relates to James and Barry leadership arguments. Apostle Paul leadership skills are used in the early church by the women leaders to demonstrate their competence, influence to the community and the initiative the hold for the Christian faith. In the patriarchal culture the women leaders were able to maintain bold leadership despite the challenges they encountered from the hostile environment. The apostle Paul had respect for women leaders therefore embracing their important impacts to the early church. The argument that leadership is not for the people holding top positions in the leadership leader is evident in this scripture. It explains that leadership is God given therefore should be exercised by everybody irrespective of their position in the society or gender. According to (1st Peter 4:10, 1st Samuel 16:13, Exodus 3:10 and Romans 12:3-8) leaderships refers to the spiritual gift from God that needs to be shared to the entire God’s creation without any discrimination especially in the line of gender. That is women should be given an opportunity to exercise their leadership skills.
There is a clear integration between James and Barry idea of leadership and that of the Apostle Paul. They mostly advocate for equal changes for leadership within all walks of life. The principle of leadership is a positive attribute that should be used for the benefit of the human race through an initiation of programs that would help people to do extraordinary things. This implies that leadership plays a fundamental role in ensuring there is smooth or understanding within the community. The scripture sheds more light on the way women leaders used the five practices of exemplary leadership that James and Barry explained in the text.
References
Kouzes, J. M. (2006). Christian reflections on the leadership challenge. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.
