Do you have the conviction to lead?

I just finished reading Conviction to Lead, The: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters, the newest book by Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Although I do not always agree with Dr. Mohler, I found this book to be an excellent look at leadership.  In his first statement he admits that this book is written to get people to change the way they look at leadership.    Mohler wants his reader to understand that at the center of true leadership there must be strong convictions that drive everything the leader does.  In this view, leadership is more than having a plan; it is having a purpose and guiding everything towards the fulfillment of that purpose.

The book consists of twenty-five chapters each of which looks at different aspects of leadership and how convictions impacts each of those aspects.  One of the chapters that was most powerful to me was "The Leader as Decision Maker."  In this chapter Mohler provides a simple structure consisting of six steps to help a leader make decisions.  My guess is that most leaders do not put this level of thought into many of the decisions they make, and that probably explains why so many of them do not work out the way we envisioned.  (Or maybe I'm just talking about myself here.)  To me, this one chapter was worth the price of the book.

Another chapter that was meaningful to me was "Leadership That Endures" in which the author addresses the importance of long-term leadership.  Anyone who has read my writings or attended one of my workshops knows the importance I place in long-term pastorates.  Mohler affirms my own beliefs that organizations, including churches, need long-tenured leadership if they want to make a significant impact.

I judge a book's value by the amount of highlighting and writing in the margins that I do while reading it.  This book has a lot of both.  I found it both informative and helpful to me as a leader, and I would certainly recommend it to my readers.

I have not reviewed too many books in this blog, but that was a regular feature of my monthly e-newsletter I used to send bivocational ministers and others.  That was one feature that many said that they found quite helpful.  Since I ceased writing the newsletter with the December issue, I decided that once a month I would review a recent book I read that I thought would be helpful to my readers.  Please let me know if you find these reviews helpful.