Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Servant Leadership of Millard Fuller - Founder of Habitat for Humanity
This is about Millard Fuller who was a true servant leader of God.
The Servant leadership model focuses on seven virtues of leadership. It is a model that focuses on virtues rather than skill.
The seven virtues are love, humility, unselfishness, vision, trust, empowerment, and service, virtues that Millard lived out in Jesus Christ.
Millard Fuller was a millionaire who gave it all up when he decided to sell all his possessions and change his life forever. Millard lived out all of these seven virtues of leadership as he spent his life living for the vision of giving people homes to live in all around the world. It was a vision that was rooted in Jesus Christ and a vision that displayed servant leadership by Millard which showed by the focus that he had for the people. He was so focused on the people who were following Him it showed true humility and servant- hood.
A servant leader must be willing to share their success and failures. They are open and they inspire others to gather together for a cause greater than themselves. Millard had created a worldwide movement that has changed the lives and empowered many community leaders to accomplish the goal of eliminating poor housing conditions. Millard used the economics of Jesus Christ.
Fuller’s leadership is inspiring to me because he was a millionaire who gave up all his money to follow Christ and live a life where he truly put his life last and put others first. He was a servant.
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dibbs!
ReplyDeleteIt is always inspiring to hear stories of people who give up so much just to follow Jesus. This is especially true when their personal sacrifice enables so much good to come out of it, just like in this case with Fuller. While this is a great example of leadership in itself, one should ask how this can apply to his or her own leadership context. As you noted, this is an amazing example of servant leadership. The traits that define this style of leadership are obviously evident in Fuller’s life, as you note. I might add that another characteristic of servant leadership, which Fuller obviously exemplifies, is the notion of leading by example. Fuller did not just talk about giving up his possessions in order to make a difference. He actually did it. In the same way, we as leaders in the church must be willing to practice what we preach. It is not enough just to stand at the pulpit and tell our congregation what they should do. First and foremost, we should be the ones to lead by example. We should step out in front of the pack, show them what needs to be done, and allow them to follow based on what we have shown them.
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