I transitioned into adulthood during the personal computing boom. Early in college I typed papers on a typewriter (remember those?), but by the time I reached seminary PC’s were coming of age. I remember the first personal computer on which I worked. I was in awe of its capabilities even in the earliest stages of the computing revolution.
One term ushered in among many by the new technological age was the term software. In high school I worked in a hardware store so I keenly understood the concept of hardware. The monitor, keyboard and mouse I am using now to create and manipulate this text are the hardware of the computer. Alternatively, the operating system (OS) is the primary software of the computer and includes the collection of instructions and code installed on it. The OS is unseen, operates behind the tactile dimensions of the hardware and allows the actual capabilities of the computer to manifest.
It would be impossible for a computer to function without its operating system. The OS provides a structure by which the computer acts. It affects every function of the machine giving it the potential to do certain things and alternatively, the limitation not to be able to do others. The OS allows the computer to exist in a manner consistent with its design. However, computers “crash” when internal system inconsistencies or flaws exist. The hardware looks fine, but a flawed OS disables the computer from functioning properly making it unpredictable and possibly unusable at all.
Similarly, almost all of us could name a leader whose leadership imploded due to inconsistencies of inner character. In time it became evident that his or her internal structure was incongruent or flawed in some way. Outwardly all looked fine. Being a competent individual, this leader possessed great hardware for leadership. They may have even achieved a measure of external success and ascended to great prominence and position. Yet, internally and privately they were decaying. Consequently, their inner lives crashed and shipwrecked their leadership… possibly leaving their families and marriages broken and betrayed as well.
Character is the unseen reality of who we are and it affects everything we do. In essence, it is the operating system of every human being. For leaders, every portion of our character is presented in and through the leadership functions we enact. Character drives a leader’s actions and attitudes.
Jesus himself directly connected inner character to external conduct and combated a compartmentalized way of thinking that characterized the priestly order and leaders of his day.
“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” Matthew 7:16-18
“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” Matthew 15:17-19
Jesus fused the fruit to the tree, and the words of a man’s mouth to his heart. In essence he stated that a person is wholly defined by the sum of the parts of his or her life- and moreso, that one incongruent part can corrupt the whole. While in the short term an individual may be able to prop up some measure of incongruence between character (form) and conduct (function), in time the truth about who they are is exposed in their actions (or as Jesus would say, “By their fruit you will recognize them.”).
Jesus in fact condemned such disconnectedness among leaders as self-deceit and hypocrisy. In his scorching indictment of the Pharisees, he exclaimed that those in leadership who practiced such duplicity were blind and corrupt.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
Matthew 23:25-28
As of this writing, a prominent local Christian leader in Houston who was greatly skilled in communication and highly trained in theology failed morally and miserably. On the outside he was a well-respected, beloved leader. Internally, secret sins and inconsistencies characterized his life. You see, a leader may rise to great heights by skill alone... but skills may take a person where character won’t keep them. If leadership were only a matter of competence then skillful leaders would never fail. The truth is we lead from who we are. This is not a command as if to say, “We should lead from who we are.” That would be like saying a computer should function according to an operating system.
It is an axiomatic fact. Whether aware of it or not- all leaders lead from who they are. This can be a positive and compelling dynamic... one that provides many benefits for leaders who have made the character connection. Or alternatively, for leaders who do not understand character’s role and come to discover who they are in Christ, leadership can be corrupting and harmful-- both to themselves and to the ones they lead.
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