Dare Great Things For Christ

Leadership can be defined in many ways.  Yet most definitions converge on the same point:  Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.  The impact my life can make on others to bring others to act for a common vision.  But how can I harness my leadership for its maximal impact?  How can I lead best?  St. Thomas Aquinas gives us the key – he teaches how to act with depth.

After a lifetime of leadership, effort, struggle, all of us want to leave a legacy behind that will be remembered.  When it is all said and done what will your life leave behind?  These are the questions that all of us face, King David was no different, and before he died he spoke to Solomon, his successor, and he gave him his legacy.  By looking at it we can get a better glimpse of our own.

Our Lord doesn’t call leaders to lead just in their businesses.  He calls them to lead in their families as well.  And in fact, it is especially in the family that the depths of who we are are tested and tried and where our leadership most intimately links us to our God.  It was no different for King David as he confronted the real struggles in his family. He also had to find his own peace with God.

Shouldn’t it all be easy?  That’s a question we a lot of us ask ourselves as we lead our businesses and work with our children – we have a dream in our mind, a kind of nostalgia, that life should be at least easy if we are good at it.  And we all want to be good at it so we think somehow or other that troubles or difficulties are signs of failure.  But that’s not what the life of King David shows us.  By looking at how King David dealth with trials we can learn a little bit more about our own.

Every good leader knows that there are few people in his life more important than those that he trusts to give good advice.  It was no different for King David.  In his kingdom he relied up on prophets and friends to guide him.  One of his most trusted advisors was the prophet Nathan.  Their relationship was profound.  Nathan corrected David twice and saved his kingdom and his legacy forever.  Let’s listen to the story and listen to God speak to us as well.

All of us need time where we can take a break and let our spirits be renewed.  In this very special series on “A Retreat With King David” I lead business professionals through a time of reflection on their own life as leaders in light of the story of King David.  God’s incredible working in David’s life presents a paradigm to help us understand the challenges and the grace of our own.

Every leader needs to pray.  The best gauge of h ow much we can stand for is the dignity of the One before whom we knee.  Prayer is the heart of leadership because it preservers the heart of the leader.  And the inner spirit that soars towards God can transform the world as needed.  One of the most powerful prayers for leaders is the prayer of The Litany Of Humility and I’m looking to sharing about it with you.

All too often in my life as a Priest I hear business leaders tell me that they don’t know why they pray.  It’s almost as if for them the time spent in prayer might be spent better by doing productive labors.  Our inability to honor the sabbath properly speaks to this.  What does the Bible have to say about the prayers of leaders?  What you find in the Bible might surprise you.

The life of the Virgin Mary is the tale of a hero.  In the face of great obstacles and great opposition Our Lady demonstrated leadership in the most excellent of ways.  She goes before us as a mother and a queen, but it can be easy to overlook the harrowing and trying circumstances in which she lived.  Learning about her heroism helps us in our own.

By our baptism we are called to lead.  We are called to bring the influence of Christ into our families, into our relationships, and into our world.  But in what does this leadership principally consist - especially for those of us who have been entrusted with communities, in our families, in our businesses, what are we supposed to do?  St. Thomas Aquinas offers us concise and insightful guidance in his work, De Regno, On The King, his letter to the King of Cyprus.