John C. Maxwell - 21 Qualities of Leaders in the Bible: Key Leadership Traits of the Men and Women in Scripture

Early in my career when I first began teaching people in church about leadership, they were often surprised. I was clearly young and inexperienced, yet the ideas I was able to convey seemed to be beyond what I should know. By my late twenties, I sensed God wanted me to teach about leadership for the rest of my life. It was my calling and my passion.

As I started writing and speaking on leadership to a more general audience, people would ask, Where in the world did you learn all this? I was happy to let them in on a secret: everything I know about leadership I learned from the Bible.

Not only is the Bible the greatest book ever written, it is the greatest leadership book ever written. Everything you could ever want to learn about leadershipvision, purpose, thinking strategy, communication, attitude, encouragement, mentoring, follow-throughis all there. You just need to be open to what God wants to teach you. As it says in Isaiah 55:11,

My word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Gods word always fulfills his purpose. If you have felt a stirring to become a better leader or if someone has tapped your shoulder and asked you to lead, God will help you.

I am excited for you as you begin this journey of leadership development through the Word of God. The focus of this workbook is on the qualities that every person needs to develop to become a better leader. Ive based this study on my book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow. Each lesson begins with a definition of the quality, but the main focus is on how that quality impacts the leadership of people in the Bible. Each lesson contains three carefully selected biblical case studiessome positive, some negativethat reveal and illustrate the quality. After you read each of these passages from the Bible, you will answer study questions that will prompt you to really dig into the Scripture and learn about leadership from it.

But this workbook isnt meant to be a theoretical study. Its meant to help you become a better leaderthe kind of person others want to follow. So every section contains leadership insight and reflection questions as well as a prompt for taking action so that you can develop the leadership quality in your life.

You can easily go through this workbook on your own and improve your leadership ability. But I want to encourage you to do this with a group. Theres nothing like learning with other like-minded people who desire to grow and develop their leadership skills. To help you with this process, Ive included group discussion questions at the end of each lesson. Plus, Ive included one additional set of questions the group can answer after youve completed all twenty-one lessons.

My recommendation is that you gather a group of people to engage in the process together. Before you meet, everyone should complete the lesson. Then gather together as a group and answer the discussion questions. I believe youll find you learn better and enjoy it more when you can discuss what youve learned and hold one another accountable to grow.

May God bless you as you enjoy this journey.