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In this episode of the Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, delves into the topic of humility in leadership. He emphasizes that true humility involves using one's position and privileges to benefit others and sacrificing for their needs, exemplified by Jesus Christ. He also explains that humility is not about self-abasement but about seeing oneself as God does and acting accordingly. There are five key reasons humility is crucial: it avoids God's opposition, invites God's exaltation, ensures divine guidance, empowers, and surrounds with God's presence. Iorg further provides practical advice for leaders to develop humility: using their positions to help others, expressing gratitude to colleagues, and celebrating others' successes. By embodying humility, leaders can enhance their influence and impact while aligning with biblical principles.
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Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.
From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
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Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, talking with you once again about issues related to ministry leadership. If you're new to the podcast, this podcast focuses on the practical aspects of getting work done in ministry organizations and churches. We try to stay away from, denominational discussions and theological arguments and focus entirely on what it means to be a more effective leader in the day to day work of ministry leadership. Now, today, I am gonna preach a little bit.
Jeff Iorg:I sometimes say this is not a preaching podcast, but today, I wanna reference a couple of passages of scripture and draw some insight from them to address a topic that's very important to all of us, hard sometimes to talk about, and difficult in a kind of paradoxical presenting of it, it seems to almost contradict the theme of it. Today, I wanna talk about humility in leadership. Yes. Humility in leadership. And the reason I laugh about that when I say it is because of a story that happened to me a number of years ago when my first book, on character and leadership came out entitled the character of leadership.
Jeff Iorg:I was, grateful the book was finally done and published, and so I took some of the initial copies and I signed 1 for each of my 3 children and mailed them to my children with short notes of appreciation for them and for their contributions to my life and, for even letting me include some of the stories of their interactions with me in the book. When my oldest son, who's never been shy about giving his dad a little bit of grief, received his copy of the book, He looked through it and saw that 1 of the early chapters in the book was entitled humility. And he called me and this is almost a verbatim of how that phone conversation went. He called me and I answered and said, hello? And he said, seriously?
Jeff Iorg:I said, seriously what? He said, seriously, you, of all people, wrote a chapter on humility and somebody actually published it? Well, there's a lot of truth in that statement from my son. He was being funny. He was being snarky, but he was also being a little bit truthful.
Jeff Iorg:Humility is not my strong suit. I think arrogance would be my strong suit. Self promotion has been 1 of my sins. It's hard to think about humility in leadership and being any kind of example of such an important quality, and yet, when I was studying and developing the material for the book character of leadership, it was very clear that 1 of the most important qualities for a leader as described in the bible is humility. And so while on the 1 hand, I found that it was very much described in scripture and the importance of it was underscored in scripture, on the other hand, I had to honestly say it really wasn't 1 of my strengths, but I had to write about it the best I could.
Jeff Iorg:And so, I developed the material and I have been writing it and teaching it, and most importantly, trying to live it for a number of years. Now, humility is a very important quality of leadership because it emulates the example of Jesus and his attitude as he approached his servant responsibilities of being our savior and lord. In Philippians chapter 2 beginning in verse 5, the Bible says this, adopt to the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus who existing in the form of God did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited or grasped. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity, and when he had come as a man, he humbled himself. Now, if you take verses 6 and 7 out, and I'm not suggesting you do, I'm simply saying grammatically if you remove them, then verses 5 and 8 say this, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, he humbled himself.
Jeff Iorg:This is the leadership attitude demonstrated by Jesus in what he then did by emptying himself, assuming the form of a servant, coming as a man, and then continuing in verse 8, continuing to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus models humility. Jesus models the true meaning of humility, and here it is. Using your position and your privileges to benefit others, and sacrificing yourself to meet the needs of others. Let me say that again.
Jeff Iorg:Humility is using position and privilege to benefit others and sacrificing to meet the needs of others. Now I say this because sometimes people have the wrong understanding of humility. They believe that humility is debasing yourself, putting yourself down, and constantly talking about your inadequacies. It's saying how, little you think of yourself and how weak that you are and how much you don't wanna be noticed. The problem is, in all this self denial, there can be a sense of pride that arises in who we are and who we are claiming to be.
Jeff Iorg:That's why humility is not putting yourself down. It's not talking about your inadequacies. It's not debasing yourself and going around saying how evil or bad or or or awful you are. It is instead using your position and privileges to benefit others and sacrificing to meet the needs of others. Jesus models for us a right understanding of humility and that he saw himself as God saw him and then used who he was to accomplish God's purposes for the benefit of others.
Jeff Iorg:So humility is seeing yourself as God sees you, accepting God's appraisal of you and fulfilling the mission God has assigned to you. Now this is particularly important for leaders. As a leader, you receive some notice, maybe even some notoriety. You're recognized by others and you're looked to for direction. Perhaps your name is on the masthead of your website or on the letterhead of your church or on the sign out front of the building, you are a person who's put forward and expected to be in public and to expect expected to draw some attention to yourself because you are the leader.
Jeff Iorg:And you might be asking, well, how can these things go together? How can I, on the 1 hand, demonstrate humility, while on the other hand, stepping forward and leading, which by its very nature draws attention to myself and causes people to look at me, focus on me, think about me, talk about me, and put my name up in lights? How do these things go together? Well, we're gonna talk about that very practically as we move on through the concluding part of this podcast. But before we get there, let's just underscore a little bit more of what the Bible says about humility and how important it is.
Jeff Iorg:First of all, humility is important because God opposes the proud. In 1st Peter 5:5, the Bible says, God resists the proud. A person teaching from this passage once told me that the word resists could be more fully translated draws up in battle array, and he used the illustration of an animal swelling itself up and preparing itself for battle and making itself look as imposing and as challenging as it could in the moment, drawing itself up in full battle form in prep preparation to attack or to defend. That's a picture of how God relates to the proud. He draws himself up in battle array, prepares himself in every way to oppose proud.
Jeff Iorg:You don't wanna be that person. You wanna be the opposite of that person. You wanna humble yourself and avoid this kind of resistance and opposition from God. Another, truth is that God exalts the humble. James 4:10 says, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.
Jeff Iorg:Now, this is again 1 of those paradoxical experiences. When you humble yourself, God will exalt you. So in the process of humbling yourself, you may gain more notoriety. You get may gain more influence. You may gain more notice.
Jeff Iorg:When you are exalted, more people may know your name, fall under your influence, listen to your sermons, read your books, pay attention to what you say in public venues. As you humble yourself, god will exalt you. This is 1 of the paradoxical realities of what it means to be a Christian leader. Your job is not self promotion. You're not supposed to strut around trying to draw as much attention to yourself as possible, hoping that by doing so, you'll become an influencer as our culture likes to define them.
Jeff Iorg:Now, the Bible says the opposite. It says, if you'll humble yourself, God will exalt you. You'll have exaltation. You'll be noticed. You'll have notoriety.
Jeff Iorg:You'll get get you'll gain greater influence. You'll have all those things if you humble yourself. The world will tell you differently. In fact, it'll tell you the exact opposite. Does that really surprise anyone?
Jeff Iorg:So let's learn this principle. God exalts the humble. You humble yourself, God will exalt you. And then God leads the humble. Psalm 29 says, the Lord leads the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.
Jeff Iorg:Humility causes God to step in and provide leadership. Humility is expressed this way very simply. It's you bowing your head and saying, god, I don't know what to do. I'm not sure which way to go, and then asking God to show you his ways and guide you in them. And the Bible says that if you humble yourself, God will lead you in his way.
Jeff Iorg:And then number 4, God empowers the humble. Numbers 123 describing Moses says this of him, Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth, and because of his humility, God worked through him in incredible ways, demonstrated his power in remarkable, remarkable ways. Isn't this another part of those the paradox of humility? As you humble yourself, God will work through you in more powerful ways. Our world is so caught up in the quest for power to gain influence, to gain authority, to gain some way to exert your control.
Jeff Iorg:And the Bible says, if you'll humble yourself, God will empower you in ways you could have never imagined. And then finally, God's presence surrounds the humble. And remember, this is the humble person, not the humble place. In Isaiah 66:1 and 2, the Bible says, God said, heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. What house could you possibly build for me?
Jeff Iorg:I will look favorably on this kind of person, 1 who is humble, submissive in spirit, and who trembles at my word. God says that while he made the heaven and the earth, 1 is his throne and the other is his footstool, while he did that, he actually looks more favorably upon, his presence rests upon, his surrounds, if you will, not the heavens and the earth is thrown in his footstool, but what? A humble person who is submissive and who submits to his word. Man, I want God's presence in my life. I want a sense that God is with me, that He is working around me and through me and impacting other people because of my presence and His presence in me and around me.
Jeff Iorg:How do I achieve that? Humility. God says he looks with favor on a person of humility, that he comes into their lives in remarkable ways and evidence, and emanates, I should say, his presence around the person who is humble. Now, I've worked through these 5 statements because I want you to understand how important it is that you work on this quality. God opposes the proud.
Jeff Iorg:He exalts the humble. He leads the humble. He empowers the humble and his presence fills up, surrounds, emanates through humble people more even than the creation itself that God made and inhabits. So so far today on the podcast, we've talked about the importance of humility and leadership. We've covered the fact that Jesus modeled humility for us and that true humility is using our position and privilege to benefit others and sacrificing ourselves to serve or to meet the needs of others.
Jeff Iorg:That's true humility. We've also learned some reasons why developing this quality is so important in our relationship with God and with others. Now, as I promised earlier, let's talk about some specific ways specific ways to develop humility in leadership. This journey started for me many years ago while I was in seminary. I was listening to a professor teach about servant leadership and humility in in service and in leadership, and he was taking the position that humility could only be demonstrated by menial acts of service or by, unknown acts of service that were done secretly.
Jeff Iorg:As I listened to him, I thought, well, that's partially true. But if humility depends on doing menial tasks or doing secret tasks that no 1 ever sees or knows, if it depends entirely on that, I remember thinking this, then the president in the office at the end of this hallway will never demonstrate humility because he's not doing menial tasks, and he's definitely not doing things that are never seen. In fact, just the opposite. He's doing broadly strategic tasks that have a impact on 100, if not thousands of people, and he's serving not quietly or behind the scenes, but in public where everyone can see what he does on a daily basis. Now, of course, I had no idea in those days that I would ever be a seminary president, but I remember thinking very clearly that what the professor was teaching that day, while true, was only partially true and did not really, encapsulate what it means to demonstrate humility in leadership, especially humility in prominent leadership.
Jeff Iorg:So that started me thinking, what does humility in leadership really look like? Well, 1 thing that helped me is the verse that says, humble yourselves. James 410 says this, 1st Peter 56 says this, humble yourselves. Now, a few years ago, I preached a series of sermons in on the New Testament phrases that include 1 another. Like for example, the Bible says love 1 another, honor 1 another, greet 1 another, and I could go on.
Jeff Iorg:You can check these out in the New Testament with a simple word search. The 1 anothers that we're supposed to do for each other in the Bible and in Christian fellowship. But do you know the Bible never says humble 1 another? Never. It never says humble 1 another.
Jeff Iorg:It only says humble yourself. That's a striking difference. We can greet 1 another. We can love 1 another. We can honor 1 another, but we cannot humble 1 another.
Jeff Iorg:And in contrast, we're not supposed to love, honor, or care for ourselves, we're supposed to humble ourselves. So again, I asked the question, what does this look like for leaders? What does it look like to humble yourself? And I wanna give you 3 practical suggestions. 1st, humble yourself by using your position and your privilege to benefit others.
Jeff Iorg:Use your position and privilege to benefit others. When you're a leader, you're going to have position that comes with certain power and authority and influence, and you're going to have privilege. You're going to be allowed to set your own schedule, to expand resources according to your judgment, to offer people employment, or in some cases, to take it away. You are going to have both position and privilege. Humility is not denying those things.
Jeff Iorg:It is not humble to say, well, I'm really not anything. You know, I'm really not the president. I'm I'm not the pastor. I'm not the director. I'm not the manager.
Jeff Iorg:I'm not anything. That's not humility. Humility is saying, I am the pastor. I am a president. I am a director or a manager.
Jeff Iorg:I am in a position that has privilege and power, and now I have the opportunity to decide how to use those. Will I use them to benefit myself to make it all about me, or will I use my position and my privilege and even my power to benefit other people? I've had some fairly dramatic examples of this over the years, but this 1 happened, oh gosh, more than a decade ago. So I feel like I can talk about it pretty openly now. Back when medical care was being really radically changed in our country with something called Obamacare and states were starting to offer, insurance programs to people with varying income levels.
Jeff Iorg:The chief financial officer of Gateway Seminary came to my office and said, you need to make a major change in our medical coverage, and you need to drop this certain kind of coverage that we've been offering for families. And I remember saying to him, have you lost your mind? Now I knew this guy pretty well, and so we could joke with each other that way, but I just looked at him and said, have you lost your mind? Do you really think I'm gonna cut that? And he said, yes, actually, you are.
Jeff Iorg:He was very serious. Then I realized, okay, this is gonna be a different kind of conversation. So I said, well, you need to make a pretty good case then because if you're asking me to cut this benefit, it's really going to hurt people, and and I just need to know why we're making this decision. He said, well, it's actually not going to hurt people. I've been doing the math based on the new way that medical care is gonna be provided in this country and the way it's gonna be paid for And actually, only 6 employees in our entire system will be penalized by the decision I'm asking you to make, and 5 of them will have relatively small, penalty that we can adjust.
Jeff Iorg:And 1 of them is gonna have a a little more of a penalty because of his situation. I said, okay. Show me what you got. And he showed me how the new plan was going to benefit most of the employees, how a few would have to pay a little extra, but we could offset that with some additional compensation. But there was 1.
Jeff Iorg:There was 1 person because of his unique situation that was gonna have to pay the most, and it was me. And he said, this is gonna be a problem for you personally because it's gonna cost you, but it's gonna benefit really everyone else. And and I I think that you still need to really consider doing this and just, let the board think about how they might resolve this situation for you if they choose to, but but you need to figure out if you can make this decision for the go to the the seminary and the community. Well, it was an easy decision. I said, well, of course, we're doing this.
Jeff Iorg:And whether it cost me or doesn't cost me, it doesn't matter because this is what's right. I'm the president. I can use my position, my privilege, and my power to make a real difference in the lives of many employees, a really positive difference in their bottom line take home pay with same medical coverage coming from different sources and different paid for in different ways. And, yes, it's gonna cost me a little more out of pocket, and it did. And God supplied the need over the years to take care of that.
Jeff Iorg:But when I made the decision, I didn't know how that would all turn out. All I knew was I had the power. I was in the position. I could make this happen, but it was going to benefit others, not me. Now that's a fairly dramatic example.
Jeff Iorg:Most of the decisions that we make about this on a daily basis are not nearly this dramatic. We just have to decide every day. I'm president. I'm pastor. I'm manager.
Jeff Iorg:I'm director. I'm the leader. I'm in a position. That position has privilege and has some power. Will I deny that and call it humility?
Jeff Iorg:No. That's not humility. Or will I embrace it and use it continually and consistently for the benefit of others? If that's what you're doing, you are demonstrating humility in leadership. Here's another way to do it.
Jeff Iorg:Humility in leadership means expressing gratitude to people who serve with you. Notice I didn't say who work for you. I don't like that phrase. People who serve with you, your colleagues, your church members, people who serve with you, who in many cases make you successful by their sacrificial work, 1 way that you demonstrate humility is by expressing gratitude to them, saying thank you, occasionally writing a note when appropriate, perhaps even giving a small gift, But saying thank you, just those words, is a powerful expression of you acknowledging the value, the importance, and the contribution of another person to your life and to the effectiveness of your organization and to the fulfillment of your shared mission. Thank you.
Jeff Iorg:Powerful words that express humility. When you say a genuine thank you to someone, you're acknowledging in the moment, it is not all about you. You couldn't do it on your own. You don't deserve all the credit. You're saying thank you tells another person that you value what they did.
Jeff Iorg:You recognize the importance of it, and you want them to know to know of their contribution. Expressing gratitude, saying thank you, is another good way for leaders to demonstrate humility. And then 3rd, as a leader, celebrate the success of others and particularly celebrate the success of other leaders. Jealousy is a real challenge. When someone else is more successful than you are, their enrollment is bigger, their attendance is larger, their finances are stronger, it's easy to grouse about that.
Jeff Iorg:Well, you know, they're just using gimmicks. They're they're bending the rules. They're not doing things with integrity. They're cheapening the grace. Well, isn't it better to say, thank God for my friend who's been more successful than me, who's grown a larger church, who has a bigger school enrollment, who's raised more money in their finances.
Jeff Iorg:Thank you, god, for this person and celebrating their success rather than denigrating or tearing them down is another evidence of humility in your life. So here are 3 suggestions. If you'd like to demonstrate greater humility as a leader, while you still occupy a position of prominence with your name on the marquee or on the letterhead, as you continue to preach sermons, write books, run a blog, As you continue to have people who come to you for counsel, look to you for leadership, sit you at the head of the table in every meeting in your church. As you lead, you can demonstrate humility by using your position, your power, your privilege to benefit others. Keep it from being all about you and make it all about others.
Jeff Iorg:2nd, express gratitude to people who work with you, who serve with you. Saying thank you acknowledges that it's not all about you, that you need other people and you recognize that and you honor them and exalt them and thank them for their contribution. And then finally, celebrate the success of others. Don't be that person who's always tearing down what other leaders are doing or as jealous of them in such a way that you say denigrating things about their work. Instead, Say grateful things, positive things, congratulatory things, celebratory things about people in other churches, other organizations, other ministries, who at least as far as you can see, are having more success than you are.
Jeff Iorg:Celebrate the successes of others. Well, today on the podcast, we've been talking about humility and leadership. Humility is not self abasement. It's not putting yourself down and saying you don't matter or saying that you shouldn't have any notoriety or notice or have anyone following you. That's not humility.
Jeff Iorg:Leadership includes all of those things. Humility in leadership is saying, is using your position to benefit others, expressing gratitude to people who serve you, and celebrating the success of others, particularly the success of other leaders. As you do these things, you will participate in the spiritual discipline of humbling yourself. And God, who sees you humble yourself, will raise you up, exalt your leadership, expand your influence, give you even more notoriety, make you a leader that more and more people want to follow. As you focus on developing humility, God will focus on broadening your leadership capacity and influence.
Jeff Iorg:I know it's a paradox. I know it's not the way the world works. But I definitely know it's what the Bible says is required of every 1 of us in leadership. Put this into practice. Work hard on it over a lifetime, develop the discipline of humility until it becomes a character quality that is a part of who you are.
Jeff Iorg:And 1 of the most fulfilling and meaningful moments perhaps in your life will be when someday someone acknowledges your humility and thanks you for the humility you demonstrate in leadership. What a good day that will be. Put it into practice as you work on humility, as you lead on.