Sometimes, the best leadership move is to serve and leave

Tom Harper June 10, 2024

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Reading the book of John today, I was surprised by Jesus' unexpected leadership move.

The feeding of the 5,000 in chapter 6 occurs after several other miracles. After each, he made sure people—primarily his disciples—understood the spiritual lessons surrounding his actions.

But not here. After he divinely multiplies a few loaves and fish to feed thousands, he bypasses a perfect teaching opportunity and instead just leaves.

Why would he skip out so quickly? Wasn't he all about discipling people?

Maybe after all his traveling and healing of the sick, he was past his physical limits. Whatever his reason, he simply sees a need and fills it.

He lets others extract the lessons and draw their own conclusions. The time for teaching was not now. Now, it was time for him to rest. He withdraws to a mountainous area by himself for some badly needed solitude.

I think this impacted me deeply because he showed me I don't always need to turn everything into a lesson for my team.

Sometimes I can go rest.

Or simply tend to other needs.

In other words…

Sometimes it's OK to serve and leave.

As a leader, is there a situation you're in right now where you can just "serve and leave?"

Maybe we should all do this more often?

Serving (and leaving) with you,

Tom Harper
Founder, BiblicalLeadership.com
LinkedIn profile | Books

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Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More »

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