“Unprecedented.” If you’ve heard that word once in the past six months, you’ve heard it a thousand times. We are living in unprecedented times. It’s true. As a leader these times have had me listening even more attentively to other contemporary leaders I trust.
But perhaps the book that has offered me the most encouragement over the past six months has been J. Oswald Sanders’s fifty-year-old Spiritual Leadership. Sanders’s book is truly timeless, its profoundly simple wisdom is well worn.
Tucked in Sanders’s book are a series of questions asked by a leader who lived a century earlier than Sanders. Below are a series of one hundred- and fifty-year-old questions that Edward Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury offered for self-reflection.
I’ve left the statements largely untouched (except exchanging “correspondence” for email inbox). The fact that we can pick up one hundred-and-fifty-year-old questions and find them so relevant for us today reminds us that while circumstances might be unprecedented, the heart of leadership wisdom remains timeless. The core leadership challenges we face are precedented. Thank God for that.
I hope these are as encouraging and convicting for you as they were for me:
Eagerly start the day’s main work.
Do not murmur at your busyness or the shortness of time, but buy up the time all around.
Never murmur when your email inbox is full.
Never exaggerate duties by seeming to suffer under the load, but treat all responsibilities as liberty and gladness.
Never call attention to crowded work or trivial experiences.
Before confrontation or censure [expressing your disapproval], obtain from God a real love or the one at fault. Know the facts; be generous in your judgment. Otherwise, how ineffective, how unintelligible or perhaps provocative your well-intentioned censure may be.
Do not believe everything you hear; do not spread gossip.
Do not seek praise, gratitude, respect, or regard for past service.
Avoid complaining when your advice or opinion is not consulted, or having been consulted, set aside.
Never allow yourself to be placed in favorable contrast with anyone.
Do not press conversation to your own needs and concerns.
Seek no favors, nor sympathies; do not ask for tenderness, but receive what comes.
Bear the blame; do not share or transfer it.
Give thanks when credit for your own work or ideas is given to another.
Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash