Book review: The Anonymous Leader

Jeff Klick Nov. 10, 2018

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Author Ralph Mayhew has penned (typed I guess would be more accurate) a challenging and thought-provoking work in The Anonymous Leader: An Unambitious Pursuit of Influence. With wisdom beyond his years, Mayhew lays out a vision that runs contrary to many in ministry today. The pursuit of success, size, money and fame tend to be front and center in many pastor circles, though often hidden behind more spiritual sounding words—church growth, capital campaigns and enlarging the kingdom. None of those are necessarily evil, but often are a cover for pride, ego and self-focus. 

Seeking to be anonymous is hardly a spoken goal for many in today’s social media dominated world. Likes, shares and going viral is the goal, not becoming hidden. Yet, Mayhew makes a strong case for the latter over the former. The goal of our leadership should be to exalt Jesus, not ourselves. Jesus must increase and we must decrease, so stated John the Baptist, and is the calling at the root of this book.

The book is not a fast read because you have to slow down and prayerfully consider what has been written and how it applies to your life. Think a bit over these quotes from the book as a sample:

• “Leading is not about you or your influence-it is about God influencing others through you and receiving the glory or credit because of it.” 
• “That people would dare to follow you is a sobering responsibility.” 
• “You are a signpost that points people toward God, and a signpost cannot afford to take up any of the road.” 
• “The anonymous leader chooses to become less so that someone else can become more of who they were created to be.” 
• “Leaders have asked others to expect more of them by stepping onto the platform of leadership.” 
• “Wise people reflect a lot. They analyze how they are feeling, what actions they have taken, why they did what they did, and how to react to certain pressures.” 
• “It’s not until a person starts to make influential decisions with those they lead that their character is truly revealed.” 
• “Of course, every leader has their weaknesses, but having them and knowing them are two different things.” 

There are many, many more quotes from this book that caused me to stop and ponder my own leadership platform. For example, “As a leader matures, what defines their leadership is not their level of confidence, but the source of their security.” What an excellent thought to think about for say, the next 20 years or so!

Overall, the book does a good job laying out the leadership platform upon which all leaders stand. The author presents fences that keep us on the platform and choices we can make that knock us off of it. The goal of the book is to end up in a chair in the middle of the platform spending time at Jesus’ feet. 

As leaders, we are supposed to be about building the kingdom of God, not our own little one. We are to lift Jesus up and He will build the Church. We are to present Jesus and draw our followers’ attention to Him, not to us or our giftings. Whatever we have been given gift-wise, the purpose is to lead others to Jesus and not to ourselves. 

As we become more like Jesus we will learn to decrease as He increases. Jesus will take center stage and we will become a blur in the background. We will learn to invest in others to excel while we rejoice in their success. We will seek to become anonymous and that is an excellent choice. 

This book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review, which is a wonderful blessing!

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Dr. Jeff Klick serves as the senior pastor of Hope Family Fellowship, an age-integrated church he planted in 1993. In addition, he is an instructor with The Institute of Church Management and is on the board of The Council for Gospel Legacy Churches. Learn More »

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