Jim Seybert - Leadership RE: Vision

When modern business-management theories collide with wisdom from the Bible, leader reputations feel the impact. Jim Seybert challenges and encourages you to wisely lead your enterprise and demonstrate your relationship with Christ to your employees, customers, and vendors.

P AUL M ARTIN, president of Advocace Media, LLC

With creative perspectives on well-known biblical stories and principles of leadership and marketing, this book lets you experience what Jim Seybert does for his clients: You get a different vision of your organization, your leadership, the world you seek to serve, and the future God has for you. Your leadership abilities, your time to lead, and the lives of those who follow you are priceless gifts that God has entrusted to you. Leadership RE:Vision gives you the insights and the practical action steps you can take to lead well in the Kingdom work God has given you.

R ICHARD K RIEGBAUM, author of Leadership Prayers

In Leadership RE:Vision, Jim Seybert challenges conventional leadership thinking, sets a fresh context for leaders actions, and calls for a new direction of principled leadership!

B OB B ROWER, P H D , president of Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, California

To say this book is a breath of fresh air is an incalculable understatement. Jims message is for leaders of all ages, in all stages of life, with all levels of experience.

I have come into contact with a considerable number of leadership books. Many I have given away, some I have kept and read carefully, and a few I have read over and over. I will do all three with this book, and it will become required reading for my executive MBAs.

D R. T OM A. B UCKLES , professor of marketing at Biola University

Jim puts his leadership lenses on, dives into the Bible, and helps us refocus our vision around leadership that blesses people. I read what I endorse, and I really enjoyed Jims work, especially his key insights into the biblical narrative.

R EGGIE M C N EAL , leadership consultant and author of The Present Future

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Leadership RE:Vision

Copyright 2009 by Jim Seybert. All rights reserved.

Cover photo copyright by Veer. All rights reserved.

Cover image of wood grain copyright by Creatas/Jupiter Images. All rights reserved.

Designed by Erik M. Peterson

Edited by Susan Taylor

Published in association with the literary agency of Mark Sweeney & Associates, Bonita Springs, Florida 34135

The authors discussion of the differences between checkers and chess was adapted from Irving Chernev, Wonders and Curiosities of Chess (Dover Publications, 1975).

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. (Some quotations may be from the NLT, first edition, copyright 1996.) Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Seybert, Jim.
Leadership RE:vision / Jim Seybert.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-2225-4 (sc)
ISBN-10: 1-4143-2225-9 (sc)
1. Leadership Religious aspects Christianity. I. Title.
BV4597.53.L43S49 2009
253 dc22 2008034384

Build: 2015-11-16 10:35:17

Dedicated to the memory of my grandmother Juana Coon, who waited patiently for me to finish writing before going home.

I NTRODUCTION

I GOT MY FIRST SET OF EYEGLASSES WHEN I was in the seventh grade. I still remember walking out of the doctors office and saying to my mom, Wow, I can actually see the leaves on those trees.

I didnt know how bad my eyes were, so I hadnt been worried about not seeing the leafy detail. The thought that I was missing something never crossed my mind because it was outside my scope of experience and understanding. The new glasses big dorky brown plastic frames and all provided a revised perspective. They helped me see things I had never seen had never even considered seeing before.

My hope is that this little book can become that new pair of glasses for you.

Leadership RE:Vision isnt about changing your goals or objectives. Its about challenging the conventional wisdom and long-held premises of what it means to be a leader. Its about looking at your leadership habits from a new perspective and using a different set of standards to measure the success of your efforts.

• Are you too patient with people who waste your time? Leadership RE:Vision will help you see the value of ignoring them.
• Are you trying hard to be a selfless leader? Leadership RE:Vision will encourage you to celebrate the self God intended you to be.
• Has a lack of experience held you back from stepping up and really leading? Leadership RE:Vision will suggest that past success can be a slippery slope to failure.

I intend to rattle your assumptions and challenge the status quo, but these arent new ideas. In fact, the foundations for Leadership RE:Vision are as old as time itself. The Bible is packed with lessons on leadership. God filled the pages of his book with examples of leaders good and bad. Somewhere along the line, our ideas of what it means to be an effective leader have been tweaked and disjointed into a style that is out of kilter with what I think God intended.

Leadership RE:Vision is my attempt to help you put on a new set of glasses and to really see the leaves.

Jim Seybert

1

D ONT W ASTE G ODS T IME

A group of men whose hearts God had touched went with [Saul]. But there were some scoundrels who complained, How can this man save us? And they scorned him and refused to bring him gifts. But Saul ignored them.

1 S AMUEL 10:26-27

O NE OF MY FAVORITE LEADERSHIP STORIES from the Bible happened when Saul was the newly appointed first king of Israel.

Saul had a mission to accomplish Gods mission. He was the person chosen to lead Gods people. This was the next step in Gods strategic plan to fulfill his promise to Abram that he would make Abrams descendants into a great nation and that through him all the families on earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3).

The people of Israel had never been at this place. Theyd never had a king. The status quo was changing. God didnt choose Saul to manage the people; he chose Saul to lead them.

Counselors are worthless if theyre merely yes-men.

Saul had a group of men around him who were dialed into the mission. They werent supporting Saul the man so much as they were supporting the mission he represented. These advisers certainly didnt agree with everything Saul suggested. (Counselors are worthless if theyre merely yes-men.) But God had touched their hearts, and they provided Saul with valuable input as he began his reign as Israels first king. They understood what Saul was trying to do, and they gave him advice.