The
 Redefined Leader

By David Osborne

If one were to take a simple view of our society, our nation and our communities, it is clear there exists a desperate need for a new kind of leadership ethos—one that will effectively respond to the injustices that scroll across each of our timelines, to the crisis of living in a hypercapitalist nation that prioritizes ultrarich billionaires and corporate interests above meeting the basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter and safety.

In the middle of this landscape, there are hundreds of books, articles, social media posts and comments that speak to the notion of leadership theory. Yet, we esteem the masses, many without responsibility for their role, with cultural titles like “influencer,” “brand ambassador” and “life coach.” All the while, folks are grappling with mental health struggles, depression and suicide. Gun violence is at an all-time high. The church of Jesus Christ sits at the intersection of these challenging realities.

Unfortunately, the church has been plagued by the same shortcomings and leadership disasters for decades, and its light has been dimmed due to scandal, abuse of power, sexual abuse, misappropriation of money and priorities that seem to be building doubt rather than building the kingdom of God.

It’s time for a redefinition of what a leader is. Today, a “redefined” leader must possess a profound burden, a prophetic vision and a provocative word. Redefined leaders maximize their influence through willing service and must be equally equipped to react and respond directly, in a visionary manner, to the needs of people God has called them to impact. As we take on the attitude of Jesus, we become redefined leaders to a lost, hurting and broken world.

A PROFOUND BURDEN

The redefined leader must first possess a profound burden to actualize what Jesus declared and embodied—a proclamation to set the captive free. Jesus is all too familiar with our plight. He was “made in human likeness” (see Philippians 2:7).

In His first proclamation, out of His burden, He established His mission and mandate, as well as our mission and our mandate: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18).

From this statement, we see the objects of Jesus’ burden: the hurting, the broken, the marginalized and the oppressed. Like Jesus, redefined leaders must possess such a profound burden that it motivates themselves and others into action.

Theologian Jacquelyn Grant said, “We must say yes to the gospel, and that yes is manifested in life as lived daily; or we can say no even by our inactivity.” It is this intangible sense of divine calling that moves us beyond the sludge of apathy and into the speed of activity.

This profound burden will require us to redefine our call. Calling is elusive, yet exact. Calling can sound vague, yet it speaks volumes. The profound burden is tied to the call. I often wonder if we should regularly revisit and reevaluate our calling. The external, inescapable stresses of leadership can diminish the vitality needed for the call. Within the problems, the projects and the people echo the internal questions, What am I doing? Am I good enough? and even, Do I have what it takes?

Beyond the noise of doubt must live the clarity of the call. How callings are fulfilled can differ vastly, but being a servant is central to calling. The redefined leader celebrates identifying with Jesus as a servant, who established a radically new way of leading as He called His followers together and said:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:25-28).

Paul leans even further into this notion of servant leadership. In his introductory remarks to the church in Rome, he states, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1). Redefined leaders celebrate this paradoxical approach to traditional leadership in which a leader postures and positions themselves to seek the greater interest and greater good of the people they have been empowered to serve, even at the expense of their own benefit.

It is the redefined leader who is not only concerned with results but with the health, well-being and thriving of those that lead with them. We must be burdened to live out the mantra of the Master: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:13-14).

So, the redefined leader’s profound burden must include resolve to be salt and light.

• To be salt in the midst of corruption and injustice.
• To be light, a city on a hill, in the midst of darkness and wickedness.
• To be salt to the bitter taste of greed and classism.
• To be light, exposing inhumanity, imperialism and hypercapitalism.
• To be salt, expelling the bitter sting of poverty.
• To be light, exposing the damaging evil of sexism.
• To be salt to the bitter sin of misogyny and patriarchy.
• To be light to expose the wickedness of homophobia and transphobia.
• To be salt to the unsavory reality of hatred.
• To be light to the blighted view of bigotry.
• To be salt to the bitter reality of racism.
• To be light to expose and expel the demonic construct of white supremacy and all its heinous effects.

A PROPHETIC VISION

The redefined leader has prophetic vision. The prolific members of hip-hop duo Mobb Deep said, “There’s a war going on outside no man is safe from, you can run but you can’t hide forever.” In the face of all the complex societal ills, problematic cultural ideologies and a deficit in meeting the fundamental needs of all people, redefined leaders today must wisely respond and rise to the call and set the tone for the task to be accomplished.

Vision, then, is of the utmost importance. Vision is not a dream, a hope or a wish. A prophetic vision carries much more significance than any of these because it is anchored in the agenda of the kingdom of God and the eternal ramifications that ripple out from it.

The Lord gave Joshua a prophetic vision, but Joshua was responsible for the strategy. We must do our part in planning, in strategizing and living intentionally to see the vision come to pass. Ultimately prophetic vision is a hearing and seeing issue. Can you see beyond the problem? Are you burdened enough to see what could be?

The redefined leader must embrace innovation, discovery and creativity in their thinking in order to challenge what is for what could be. In his recent book The Creative Act, famed producer Rick Rubin writes, “The world of reason can be narrow and filled with dead ends, while a spiritual viewpoint is limitless and invites fantastic possibilities. The unseen world is boundless.”

What Rubin unknowingly describes parallels how the prophetic visionary must be connected to God through prayer. Praying powerfully in the Spirit shapes the heart to want what God wants. Prayer settles our souls, our worries and concerns. Prophetic vision is seen in prayer and, as a result, forms perseverance. A prophetic vision will cause pain, but prayer settles the prophetic visionary’s heart.

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). Simply put, don’t be scared! As the brilliant activist Fannie Lou Hamer famously stated, “I’m gonna be standing up, l’m gonna be moving forward, and if they shoot me, I’m not going to fall back, I’m going to fall 5 feet, 4 inches forward.”

The redefined leader’s prophetic vision has the power to redefine an entire community. “God’s presence in the world is best depicted through God’s involvement in the struggle for justice,” says Anthony Pinn, professor of philosophy and religion at Rice University in Houston. He goes on to state, “God is so intimately connected to the community that suffers, that God becomes a part of that community.”

Redefined leaders with prophetic vision have always been a part of the story of freeing the oppressed. Leaders like . . .

. . . Richard Allen, who in 1794 founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States.

. . . Sojourner Truth, a powerful abolitionist, who escaped slavery to freedom and became the first Black woman to sue a white man and win. Then, in 1843, Sojourner began to preach the gospel and speak out against slavery and oppression.

. . . Frederick Douglass, who spoke to the power of vision when he said, “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”

Each of these believers, visionaries and pastors redefined what a leader with prophetic vision could accomplish: they set the captive free!

A PROVOCATIVE WORD

Finally, the redefined leader must have a provocative word. The Oxford English Dictionary defines provocative as “causing annoyance, anger, or another strong reaction, especially deliberately.” I contend that if the words of leaders do not provoke others into kingdom activity, then it would be better to simply be quiet. The results would be the same.

When we read about Stephen, the first Christian martyr, within the early stages of a burgeoning movement of Jesus followers, the book of Acts says, “Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke” (Acts 6:9-10).

Stephen’s provocative word heralded boldly and unwavering, “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him” (Acts 7:51-52).

During the Reconstruction Era (1865-1987), God raised powerful redefined leaders like Stephen to courageously speak for equity and equality. Leaders like Carter G. Woodson, an educator and author, who said in his famed work The Miseducation of the Negro, “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it.”

The wickedness of Jim and Jane Crow and the Lynching Era (1867-1960s) tried to silence the provocative word, when nearly 5,000 Black bodies hung naked from trees, burned, tarred, castrated and disembodied. The flawed attempt to terrify and silence revealed redefined leaders who continued to provoke by the Word of God.

Ida B. Wells, famed anti-lynching activist and prophetic spiritual leader, spoke of a new kind of leadership needed during those times. In 1892, Wells said, “All organized effort betokens leadership, and upon the world’s leaders the seal of history has the stamp and by that we know that leader is true or false in proportion as it has been true to God, humanity and self.”

It was Howard Thurman and Benjamin Mayes, theologians and professors, who each mentored young redefined leaders, including a young Martin Luther King Jr. On the night before his assassination, Dr. King undauntedly proclaimed, “I’m not fearing any man; I just wanna do God’s will.” King’s resolute boldness in this moment still speaks volumes today.

You hear it within the words of Aileen Hernandez, president of the National Organization for Women, when she declares, “You do your best to get something done. And if it’s not moving, you don’t stay there and keep waiting for it to move. You go out somewhere and start pushing them, to move.” Like so many others, redefined leaders choose the ethics of Jesus with a love that removes all fear—until their last dying breath!

A redefined leader’s provocative word will challenge our credibility. Do we actually believe what we teach, in action? Can we be trusted? Our integrity must match our message. Redefined leaders prioritize inner development. We’re reminded in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Redefined leadership, powered by the Spirit, is more difficult and more time-consuming to cultivate than that which is created by style. However, the results and effectiveness of redefined leaders resonate much more deeply and broadly. Now more than ever, our society is in need of not simply figureheads, point men and positional leaders.

The redefined leader’s inner life is developed with a highly intentional concentration of deeply forged character, proven consistent integrity and continual submission to the will of God. Ignorant neglecting or intentional undervaluing of formation leads to empty, shallow, temporary and even tyrannical leadership.

Develop your inner life to avoid your outer dysfunction. Character development takes time, and you cannot rush formation and character development. None of us are magically gifted with integrity. In other words, integrity doesn’t just happen. Ultimately, it is a commitment to the daily working of the Holy Spirit to order our inner lives.

Redefined leaders define the cultural conscience by getting muddy. In fact, they have no problem getting muddy. What does it mean to get muddy? This simply means to get involved in the “mud” of people’s pain and suffering. Give time to muddy situations. Gain wisdom from “mud-specialists,”—the OGs, the mothers and the fathers. Once you realize God created us out of love—out of mud—then the thought of being a mud-specialist becomes a privilege not a punishment.

Redefined leaders value people over productivity. They value people over profit. This redefines the cultural conscience in the best and most necessary way possible. When the bottom line becomes the dominant rationale, we’ve drifted and need to recalibrate our own conscience.

Redefined leaders’ provocative word can redefine the culture. If our organizational and Christian subcultures and silos do not ultimately touch the broader culture, what have we done? We are called to understand. And then to stand. To raise up a cry for the disconnected. To fight injustice. To advocate for the marginalized. To feed the poor, to clothe the naked, to shelter the immigrant.

To break oppression of any kind levied against all people—whether women, men, Black, brown, gay, queer, trans, straight, able, disabled, young, old, poor or rich. To dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. To disrupt the injustice of unfair wages. To speak out and stop the coverup of miseducation through banning books by other redefined leaders God has called to be salt and light. And to be a safe house for all those whose physical safety is in danger because of the evil indoctrination of wicked tyrannical leadership.

The redefined leader believes we are all created in the image of God with intrinsic, inherent value and dignity. Through the profound burden, the prophetic vision and the provocative word, the redefined leader will redefine culture.