The Leadership Hub

We are excited to kick off season three of Whiteboard Wednesday with John Messer, who serves as Regional Executive and Leadership Development Catalyst for Luminex. Today John describes the “Leadership Hub.”

One major component of our leadership process is the “hub,” and other parts of that cycle are comprised of freeing, visioning, implementing, and sustaining. If you are already using a leadership cycle model, fantastic! But it’s really important that you use the correct hub for your leadership cycle.

Within this model, the critical component is the hub because if you lose the hub, the cycle falls apart. Have you ever tried cycling on a bicycle that didn’t have a hub on the wheel? What happens then? You don’t get anywhere. You crash and burn.

The same is true in leadership cycles. The critical hub is awareness, and the awareness in the leadership hub is comprised of two kinds of awareness:

1. God awareness
2. Self-awareness

Not only is God awareness and self awareness the hub, but it’s continuously spinning through all of the processes (i.e, freeing, visioning, implementing, and sustaining) in the leadership cycle. They are all built on the same hub of God awareness and self awareness. Remember that Calvin introduced the concept of double knowledge (i.e., knowledge of self and knowledge of God). Without knowledge of God and self, we are incapacitated to be effective in the ministry of the Holy Spirit in freeing, visioning, implementing, and sustaining.

So how do we focus on self awareness? We begin with the common disciplines of scriptural study, prayer, meditation, being willing to ask ourselves hard questions, and having someone who is willing to do that for us (someone we can pray with, and be authentic with).

But there is more to it than that. The first cycle process is freeing. When we get to know ourselves, we identify sin within us. We identify sinful tendencies and those things from our past (either from historical events or sinful/ emotional bondages). It’s the dark side of leadership. This is why God awareness and self awareness are so critical. Without this awareness, we cannot be set free to follow the Holy Spirit into all of the other aspects.

This is why freeing is the first step. Without freeing and awareness, you cannot truly be free. If you cannot be set free, you cannot obtain the components of vision, implement, and sustain in a Godly way.

So I encourage you as leaders, as those who are leading for Christ, to make sure that God awareness and self awareness is the hub of your leadership cycle. Also, make sure it’s the hub of your other leader’s leadership cycle. So we can all be free indeed as Christ has intended.