Understanding Servant Leadership

Leadership and governance in our modern world often leave a lot to be desired in both public and private life, especially in the church. Too often leadership and governance are viewed as academic disciplines to be be confined to academic institutions. But this is just half of the job. The internal arts and sciences of leadership and governance have been substantially neglected. Thanks be to God, that this new book, Understanding Servant Leadership: A Leadership Model of Jesus Christ, written by Luka Vandi Uti, addresses the yawning gap created by the dearth and bane of leadership and governance in our country Nigeria. This book is a wake up call for all Christians to take Christian and biblical principles of servant leadership seriously and adjust their high-handedness of domineering and laissez-faire style of leadership.
This book is about the way of Jesus Christ and his apostles, who have become the model of leadership and governance. Our overemphasis on external acts or doings, in our training in leadership and governance, should be augmented or complemented by an emphasis also on the need for internal acts or being. Jesus and his apostles cultivated a disciplined lifestyle of godliness, which produced the spiritual quality and qualification of a human being who can serve humanity. This is the development and nurturing of a moral and spiritual character. Moral and spiritual character matters, and this is primary. Jesus and his apostles combined both external acts of doing and internal acts of being to build a disciplined moral and spiritual character of service and servanthood. What is inside and what is outside is the same as the other. This is the unity of being and doing, our moral and spiritual character, and our actions. Jesus and his disciples cultivated and developed a leadership style that was founded upon moral character, that is, be first, before doing. It is a leadership of moral character in the service of others.
The author of this book took time to study the Bible and scholars on Jesus' model of leadership, which is servanthood. Service is fundamental and also the key to unlocking leadership and governance principles and qualities. Leadership and governance bereft of service turn one into a monster. Jesus and his apostles were never monsters, autocratic, or domineering. They were simple and humble servants of fellow human beings.

Yusufu Turaki, Ph.D., MNIM, MELI, mnc
Professor of Theology and Social Ethics
Jos ECWA Theological Seminary