Leadership is influence. This is the definition that the
pastor of an evangelical Christian mega-church enunciated in a sermon that took
up nearly the entire service on the Sunday morning of my visit. Parents,
teachers, students, and artists—all and many others—the cashiers at Walmart—are
leaders, according to the pastor. “You need to get over the hurdle,” he
charged, “of thinking that leadership only applies to kings and people on
stages.” As influence, leadership applies to virtually anyone—all of us. Populism
was the real message. “A kingdom is actually any place of influence,” he added.
Everyone is a king in his or her own kingdom by virtue of simply having
influence.
The full essay is at “Leadership
Is Influence”