to Quack or to Soar?

The world is in desperate need of a different leadership role model not just an organizational model, but a life role model.

Few people have impacted the day-to-day management of people and companies more than Ken Blanchard. A prominent, gregarious, sought-after author, speaker and business consultant, Blanchard is universally characterized by his friends, colleagues and clients as one of the most insightful, powerful and compassionate individuals in business today. From his phenomenal best-selling book, The One Minute Manager, coauthored with Spencer Johnson, which has sold more than 12 million copies and remains on best-seller lists, to Lead like Jesus, coauthored with Phil Hodges, Blanchard's impact as a writer is far reaching.

Blanchard is Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Marjorie Blanchard, founded in 1979 in San Diego, California. He is cofounder of The Center for Faith Walk Leadership, which is dedicated to helping leaders walk their talk in the marketplace.

We've all seen what has happened with leaders who are self-serving in business, in churches, in running countries. As I travel, I see problems with leaders who think leadership is all about them, all about the acculmulation of wealth for them and their friends and family, about power and status and moving up the hierarchy.

But as Paulo Freire says in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, once the oppressed through of the leader, unfortunately the only leadership role model they have is that of the oppressor. So the oppresssed then become the oppressor.

I went on safari three years ago, and I was with my wife at a party a few weeks before. They asked the guests who they would like to have dinner with. For me it was a really easy choice. I said Nelson Mandela, because I would like to have dinner with a man who was jailed for 28 years, mistreated and abused, and he comes out of there full of love, reconciliation and compassion. Then we visited Robben Island, where they held him for most of the time. You wouldn't believe the conditions that guy lived in. I got a copy of Long Walk to Freedom, about his life, and I was reading it as I was heading to Africa. And then we get out to the jungle.

We've been on safari a number of times. But when I compare it to Nelson Mandela, I realize how vicious the jungle is, how territorial the jungle is, how violent the jungle is, and how self-oriented the jungle is. The lion's roar can put a chill up your back. Our guide on safari says when the lion roars he is shouting, "It's mine! It's mine! It's mine! Baby, this is MY territory and if you mess around with this, you're in trouble!" A lion will kill his sons if they challenge his territory.

We are animals, although we don't like to think so. We are intelligent animals. We have the opportunity to make choices that the animals don't make. The choice is between the flesh and the spirit, between being self-serving and serving. A rhino can't get up in the morning and say, "I think I'll go over and make friends with the lions today." It's not in his nature. But we can. Every day, when we get up, we can make a choice. Do we want to serve or be served? Do we want it to be all about us or all about the greater good? We have all seen what has happened with leaders who are self-serving.

There are life leaders, and there are organizational leaders. Very seldom do people mention a boss when you ask them who their role model was. They mention their mother, their father, their uncle, teacher or coach. When I became a Christian in 1988, I went right to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts because I am a behavioral scientist. I wanted to see what the man did. I find that the guys that did everything that I ever taught or wrote about were 12 incompetent guys. They were slow. You would never have hired that lot.

It's very interesting; they were all businesspeople, no clergymen. Henry Blackerby and I agree on this: He says the great spiritual revolution will come from businesspeople by demonstration, not proclamation. It will not come from evangelism.

I pray every morning, "Lord, protect me from your people." I have never met such vicious people as Christians. They want to be right. My big disillusionment since I've become a Christian is that we've got the worst business model in the world. I was in suburban Chicago and asked a guy there, "How many churches here have Jesus central to them?" He said about 1,200. I said, "Do you think Jesus is a good product?" He said, "Yeah, the best." So I said, "What if I wanted to franchise Him?"

Think of it. Twelve hundred franchises, none of them talk to teach other, all of them compete with each other, and all of them bad-mouth each other. We've got to get a life as Christians and stop arguing about each others' rituals. Who cares? The important thing is do you love Jesus, and do you use him as a role model in your life? We've got to look at the way Jesus said we need to lead. He said, "Even I have come to serve, not to be served." He said we are supposed to be servant leaders.