Quote and photo by CM Earnest
Human beings excel at form over substance, quantity over quality and presentation over functionality. Just look at our current batch of politicians, and it tells the same old story that has been around since Adam and Eve. Eve made that very same mistake when she chose to disobey God, and Adam did worse by simply following along.
However, as I’ve been hammering on a bit, people can and do change. Nelson Mandela certainly changed. We Christians have changed, if we are truly converted that is. Conversion is change, but it is specifically change towards a goal to develop the character of Christ. We also are learning to become leaders, so leadership principles are very important to this process of change.
One thing in life that is constant is change. Sometimes, when someone asks me if a particular action will make things better, I honestly but with tongue in cheek answer, “Well, it will either make it better, or it will make it worse.” Things do not stay the same. That’s life.
That is why I found the recent The Quintessential Leader blog article “Quintessential Leaders See People as Movies While Unquintessential Leaders See People as Still Photos Frozen in Time” particularly interesting. The story of leaders like Mandela is that one not only can change but must change to stretch and grow, and it is terribly short-sighted to freeze him at any particularly unflattering point of time and view him that way forever.
The article asks us readers if we would want to be viewed that way. I can attest that it is carnal human nature to view a person at a frozen point in time and not acknowledge what they have become rather from where they come from. I’ve been at both ends of this particular action, and it is wrong and grossly unfair.
I suggest you read the article. Better yet, subscribe to the blog. In order to become a godly leader, one must become a Quintessential Leader.