Life-giving leadership … the idea comes from the Christian Scriptures, where Jesus desires to do His Father’s will, and His Father’s will is to bring … life. Over thirty years of leadership experience, I have witnessed leadership that brought the complete opposite. I’ve seen parents downgrade their children and destroy their self-esteem; in secondary education, I watched principals send their teachers to the wolves with nary a bit of back-up; I’ve observed military leaders engage in back-stabbing and tearing people down in a mad scramble to promote, only to reap the fruits of death when they arrived; I've experienced clergy members so focused on themselves they left nothing but a path of destruction behind them.  Conversely, I’ve watched leaders in all of these areas bring life to the ones they lead. It is a beautiful picture of health, healing, humor, and happiness, and transformation.     

     Outside of the Christian Scriptures, my second favorite leadership book is The Ascent of a Leader, and it builds a picture of leaders who succeed because they are authentic and they bring their followers with them on the leadership journey, and in turn they all rise together. This is the kind of change I hope to inspire in myself and others—life-giving leadership.