Leaders Are Learners

Leaders who stay enrolled in God’s school of learning are more the wiser. You have learned tremendous lessons over the years, but this is just the beginning. Stay in the educational process. We never arrive as learners. Teachability should only cease after our graduation into heaven. Indeed, great leaders want to follow leaders who are learners.

Effective leaders know that a growing leader will pass on his or her learning experiences. Great leaders grow leaders! And there is a good chance what you are currently learning as a leader is the same lesson someone else is struggling to conquer. Your ability to stay engaged in the learning process allows you to tutor other leaders facing the same issues.

When we stop learning we cease to be relevant, we become stale and our influence begins to wane. Learning keeps us engaged with our team and with other leaders. Moreover, a wise leader understands the learning curve required to tackle new issues and problems. Everyday there are opportunities that beg for attention and understanding. This means greater wisdom is required. Gratefully, the Lord gives wisdom liberally to those who ask:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).

Furthermore, learn from everyone and everything around you. Educated and uneducated, rich and poor, young and old are all teacher candidates. God places people in our lives daily as His teachers. Perhaps you study the life of people from the past. You can read biographies, book reviews and historical novels. Dead people are rich with life lessons to be harvested and stored in your barn of knowledge, both positive and negative examples.

Learn how they sacrificed their family to gain business success, and then avoid the same mistakes. Discover how successful leaders from the past influenced men and women for a greater good and then follow their example. Dissect the lives of great leaders and place the pieces of their lives under the microscope of God’s word and the scrutiny of your experience. Then you can extract truth and you will discover patterns of success.

Of course feasting on the classics is imperative to the leader who is hungry to learn. Maybe read books together and discuss as a leadership team. Expose yourself to their timeliness and you will find yourself lost in learning. Your mind and heart will travel to uncharted waters for you, but places where others have not feared to fail and succeed.

The classics will challenge you to become a critical thinker and to look beyond the surface for great nuggets of truth. Why mess around with the milk of easy thinking when we can plunge into the meat of issues great thinkers have wrestled with over centuries? Most importantly, feed on the wisdom of God’s word. Holy Scripture is your number one source for truth. Wise leaders apply the practical principles for living found in the Bible.

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

What is God teaching me as a leader? Am I embracing and applying His wisdom?

Related Readings: Exodus 18:24-26; I Kings 4:29; John 12:42; Romans 12:8

Boyd Bailey is the author of Wisdom Hunters daily devotional and two devotional books, Infusion and Seeking Daily the Heart of God