LEADERS ARE PARTNERS“Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people
were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit on
them!” (vs. 29).One of the quickest ways to tell if a leader has really developed a partnership
spirit is when he manifests a lack of jealousy over God’s sovereign blessing
of another person’s life and leadership! In essence Moses said: “I wish
every one of the Israelites were leaders! I wish God would pour out His Spirit
of leadership equally on every one! I wish that His Spirit would anoint each of
them just as He has me! I wish they were all prophets! I wish that every one of
them would become leaders!” Moses had matured to the degree that he no
longer wanted to have exclusive ownership of all of the privileges and
powers of leadership. He gladly wanted to share it with as many others
as possible! That’s true partnership leadership!
We can also see this team spirit...delegation of responsibility...shared
leadership in the life of Nehemiah. As he faced the daunting task of
rebuilding the broken walls of Jerusalem, he knew he could not do it
alone. Like Moses, he became a partner leader. He said...
“I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani along
with Hananiah the commander of the citadel because
he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most
men do” (Neh. 7:2).Nehemiah not only delegated authority and shared leadership – he did so by
picking the right men for the job! Partnership leadership is crucial – but it
must be with the right men who have the right talents with the right attitude.
Otherwise, no amount of training can compensate for poor selectivity. As
the leadership maxim says: “You can’t do in training what you should have
done in selectivity.”
This paradigm of shared leadership is a concept that many immature
and insecure Christian leaders today have not made! They still want to
retain all of the power...make all of the decisions...call all of the shots.
They especially resent it when God blesses and anoints someone else in
ministry above them!
Partner-leadership is a definite Old Testament principle – as demonstrated
through dynamic leaders like Moses and Nehemiah. Both demonstrated