Leadership: From The Heart, With The Hands

He shepherded them with a pure heart and guided them with his skillful hands. (Psalm 78:72, HCSB)

This has become a defining verse for me in terms of leadership. It provides a model for developing one’s leadership. It also provides a simple checklist, if you will, of what should characterize your leadership. It can be fleshed out, and should be, in more detail but the simple outline is what we read there: a pure heart and skillful hands. This is an example of Hebrew parallelism, saying the same basic thing twice, with a slightly different nuance of meaning. (Of course, this was important when all instruction was oral and repetition was crucial to retaining the teaching.)

For me, it is important to see the connection between the two. When they get isolated, integrity and impact issues begin to arise. On the one hand, I may have a pure heart but no skillful hands. We’ve heard the expression before, “Well, their heart is in the right place.” What does that mean? Usually, it means, “Well, they’re pretty much an idiot.” On the other hand, a would-be leader might have skillful hands, great abilities in administration or planning, but no purity of heart. We usually wind up reading about those cases in the news. The pure heart sees the end and the skillful hands understand the means but we need both. God seeks leaders who can with their hands direct others toward an end that is pure, which glorifies and honors Him.

Harvard Business Review captured this dichotomy pretty well several years ago when they identified two types of ineffective managers: competent jerks and lovable idiots. The former was ineffective in relational issues and the latter was ineffective in tactical issues. What is needed is a blend of the hard and the soft skills.

The old adage of “know thyself” is crucial at this point. In terms of our personality, we tend to gravitate toward either task or relationship. Neither is right or wrong but one without the other is always insufficient. Teams need to give some thought to that and the composition of the team in terms of the hard and the soft skills.

Probably some definition would be helpful in terms of the two components, which as we mentioned must be kept as a parts of a dynamic whole. Much could be said about a pure heart. One quality that cannot be omitted is servanthood. For a Christ follower, it is essential. Jesus understood what typically prevailed in popular culture regarding leadership and issued the “Not So With You” axiom in Matthew 20:25-28. For Christian leaders, the motivation of our leadership must be to serve others, not self, out of a love and loyalty to God.

Skillful hands flow out of the servant heart. Together they make up servant leadership. The latter is about doing something and accomplishing something, as opposed to the “leader” who does relationships for relationships’ sake. It is important to avoid the mistake of simply taking skills that we have learned elsewhere and “baptizing” them. The skillful hands flow out of the pure (servant) heart and express it.

One of the helpful ways I have heard this put is from the book Lead Like Jesus by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges. They talk about an educational model called The Way of the Carpenter. Jesus, of course, did miraculous things while he was here on earth. However, He did not use miracles in developing His disciples. I suppose He could have done so but instead He chose to use a non-supernatural education model to help His followers “become fishers of men.” It was the model that He would have trained in as a carpenter under his earthly father Joseph. (By the way, with the exception of the introduction of power tools, carpentry as a trade has remained a timeless trade, virtually unchanged since biblical times.)

I am thankful that Jesus chose to develop His followers this way. Why? Because, to the best of my knowledge, I do not have the ability to perform miracles. I have never been able to heal a blind person. I have never been able to feed 5,000 people through a couple of sandwiches. And I have never been able to raise someone from the dead. However, I can instruct people, I can coach them, encourage them and delegate tasks to them.

You have heard the old expression about how people fall into one of our four categories:

They don’t know but they don’t know that they don’t know

They don’t know and they know that they don’t know

They know but they don’t know that they know

They know and they know that they know

This is very similar to Blanchard and Hodges’ Way of the Carpenter:

Stage Description Need

Novice Enthusiastic beginner Direction

Apprentice Disillusioned learner Coaching

Journeyman Capable but cautious performer Support

Master Self confident achiever Delegation

What makes this servant leadership? The leader adapts to the person, rather than employing a one-size-fits-all approach. Since the skillful hands of a leader flow out of a pure heart of servanthood, that leader is willing to make the effort and adapt. They are willing to invest the time to understand where this person is and then work with them accordingly.

What is the calling God has placed on your life? Specifics vary but the ultimate end is always to make His name and fame great among the nations, beginning in your hometown. Pure hearts and skillful hands are both means to that great end. They don’t exist in isolation from each other and bring them together requires more than just personality. It requires spirituality, an abiding relationship with Christ, who is the ultimate model for leadership.