Conviction, Humility, and Self-Confidence in the Workplace
00:00:00.000 | We're back with Dr. Albert Moeller, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological
00:00:09.760 | Seminary in Louisville and the author of the book, The Conviction to Lead, 25 Principles
00:00:13.640 | for Leadership that Matters.
00:00:15.440 | Dr. Moeller, in the book you wrote this, "In the secular world, leaders worry about the
00:00:20.360 | judgment of stockholders and stakeholders.
00:00:23.800 | Politicians worry about the verdict of history.
00:00:25.680 | As Christian leaders, we know that we will face nothing less than a divine judgment on
00:00:31.000 | our leadership."
00:00:32.000 | Those are strong words.
00:00:33.800 | Explain this.
00:00:34.800 | How important is the final judgment in the life of Christian leadership?
00:00:37.400 | Well, it goes back to what we were talking about in terms of why what we do here in this
00:00:42.040 | life is important.
00:00:43.640 | It's not important because it's the end of all things.
00:00:46.800 | If it were the end of all things, we'd be in trouble because we would have to find all
00:00:50.120 | life and meaning and rescue and redemption and salvation in this life, and it's not here.
00:00:54.220 | This life is important, and so what we do in this life has a dignity to it and a purpose
00:01:00.040 | to it that explains why, for instance, the career we have, the profession that we've
00:01:06.400 | been called to, the particular responsibility given to us is important, and the vision of
00:01:12.040 | where these things are going is that, for instance, the secular world, he says, we're
00:01:16.040 | doing this in order to get to the next quarterly report, to the next annual review, perhaps
00:01:22.720 | to the next 10-year plan.
00:01:24.080 | The Christian does not have no concern at all for those things, but the Christian understands
00:01:29.140 | that we are citizens of a heavenly kingdom.
00:01:31.320 | Our most important existence is not in this life.
00:01:36.760 | We're not going to try to get all our joys in this life.
00:01:38.920 | Satisfaction is found only in Christ, and that will be given to us only as Christ brings
00:01:43.780 | His kingdom in fullness, but in the meantime, we can do great good, and we're called to
00:01:48.500 | do great good, and we can change lives.
00:01:52.300 | We can influence many, and what a great and glorious thing that God has given us this
00:01:57.380 | opportunity.
00:01:58.380 | Yeah, amen.
00:01:59.380 | That is glorious.
00:02:00.380 | And to influence many, leaders must use authority and power.
00:02:04.700 | Authority and power, of course, are loaded terms today, and really anyone with authority
00:02:08.540 | or power is held in immediate suspicion.
00:02:12.060 | How does a leader lead, knowing that the folks he may be leading are suspicious of him merely
00:02:15.720 | because he's leading?
00:02:17.660 | Well, we live in an anti-authoritarian age to only a very limited extent.
00:02:22.740 | It is interesting that you have Theodore Adorno and others who back especially after the Second
00:02:27.380 | World War said, "We have to get rid of all authority.
00:02:30.160 | Authority itself is bad because it's always misused."
00:02:33.460 | And the problem is we can't live without it.
00:02:35.140 | God has made us also to desperately need structure, to need authority.
00:02:40.620 | That's true in the church, and it's also true in the society at large.
00:02:43.580 | Romans 13 tells us that God himself has put governing authorities in power because there
00:02:49.140 | is something worse than a tyrant, and that's anarchy.
00:02:52.340 | And it turns out that human beings actually long for that kind of authoritative leadership.
00:02:57.020 | Now, that doesn't mean that it's the wrong and abusive understanding of authority, and
00:03:02.100 | that's where Christians also have to understand that our stewardship is always on behalf of
00:03:07.540 | another.
00:03:08.860 | And so any authority we have is a delegated authority, and we have it always as long as
00:03:13.420 | we have it, and we have the stewardship of it so long as we have it.
00:03:17.260 | And so it's kind of like fatherhood, Tony.
00:03:20.620 | The last thing we need are fathers who don't father.
00:03:24.060 | And certainly there are horrible models of authoritarian fathers who didn't love their
00:03:27.460 | children, were abusive to their children, and we recoil in horror at that.
00:03:31.700 | But the last thing we need then, on the other hand, are fathers who sit around looking at
00:03:35.300 | four-year-olds and saying, "Okay, what would you have us to do today?
00:03:38.740 | What would you have to be our goal in life?
00:03:41.700 | How would you discipline yourself?"
00:03:43.060 | It just doesn't work, and we know it.
00:03:44.900 | And so everywhere you find a great leader, you find the exercise of authority, but we're
00:03:51.500 | all judged on that exercise of authority.
00:03:54.900 | And of course, the most important authority is that of influence.
00:03:57.780 | If it comes down to the fact, just like if the father is always having to say, "You do
00:04:01.140 | this because I said so," we've got a problem.
00:04:04.380 | Now, the child should do it because the father says so, but more than that, the child should
00:04:08.300 | want to do it because the father has influenced the child so that the child has intuitions
00:04:13.940 | and inclinations to eagerly do what the father suggests.
00:04:18.420 | And so I think when we look at words like "authority" and it gets tied to "leadership,"
00:04:24.740 | we have to understand that honesty compels us to say there is no leadership without some
00:04:29.380 | form of authority.
00:04:30.900 | Because by the way, when you have people talk about authority, they're often thinking merely
00:04:35.460 | about positional authority, but there's the authority of influence, there's the authority
00:04:40.380 | of charisma, there's the authority of personality, and there's the authority of opportunity.
00:04:45.840 | So we just have to be honest and say, "Wherever you find a leader, there's some kind of authority.
00:04:50.340 | The question is whether it's being exercised faithfully or not."
00:04:52.820 | Yeah, amen.
00:04:53.820 | The title of your book is "The Conviction to Lead."
00:04:56.980 | Leaders have conviction, and that means they need some level of self-confidence, for lack
00:05:02.980 | of a better word.
00:05:04.180 | Where do we draw the balance between bold confidence or self-confidence and a humble
00:05:08.020 | correctability on the other hand?
00:05:10.700 | Another great question, but I think it's implied in the title of the book, "The Conviction
00:05:14.860 | to Lead."
00:05:15.860 | I am doing my very best to redefine leadership in terms of conviction that is shared with
00:05:23.140 | others and then leads to right corporate action.
00:05:26.700 | And the fact is that if the Christian leader understands that the conviction to lead means
00:05:31.580 | to lead with conviction, then we understand that this is not being done in our own name.
00:05:37.380 | This is not self-confidence because we're so confident in ourselves.
00:05:40.420 | We're absolutely confident in truth.
00:05:42.580 | We're absolutely confident.
00:05:43.580 | One of the things I point out is that convictions aren't merely the things you believe.
00:05:47.500 | They're the beliefs that possess you, that define your life.
00:05:51.420 | And if you lead that way, you're going to understand that our first confidence is in
00:05:56.020 | truth.
00:05:57.020 | That means for the Christian, our first confidence is in the God of all truth, the God who revealed
00:06:00.260 | truth and in Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life.
00:06:04.620 | And thus, our confidence is in the fact we really do know the one true and living God.
00:06:09.540 | And we really do know the purpose of life.
00:06:11.740 | And we really do know what it means to find salvation in Christ and then to follow him
00:06:17.540 | as his disciple.
00:06:18.540 | We really do know right from wrong.
00:06:20.460 | We really do know a value system that the world does not understand.
00:06:25.260 | And based on those convictions, we do have a certain amount of self-confidence.
00:06:29.020 | The last thing you need is a leader that gets up there and isn't sure.
00:06:32.340 | But again, the issue is we should be sure of the convictions.
00:06:35.260 | That should produce the confidence.
00:06:36.580 | That was Dr. Albert Moeller by phone from his office.
00:06:40.540 | He serves as the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he is the
00:06:44.040 | author of the book, "The Conviction to Lead, 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters."
00:06:48.020 | Moeller is a master of media, print, digital, social media, video, and audio, you name it.
00:06:54.900 | And tomorrow I'll ask him about the role of reading, writing, and blogging in leadership.
00:06:58.660 | I'm your host Tony Ranke, and I'll see you tomorrow.
00:07:00.820 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:07:09.400 | [ Silence ]