I just finished reading Steve Moore’s new book, The Top 10 Leadership Conversations in the Bible. Steve has been a friend and mentor for years. His insights have deeply impacted my life, and his mentorship was the seed that birthed my latest book, Do Good Works.
After extensive personal research, Steve has identified 1,181 leaders named in the Bible (1,073 in the Old Testament and 108 in the New Testament). More than 13,000 additional leaders are referenced in the Bible but not named.
From his research, and using a detailed ranking process, Steve identified the top ten leadership conversations from the four eras of biblical leadership: The Patriarchal Era, National Era, Transitional Era, and Spiritual Era. What emerged is truly fascinating, inspiring, and deeply impacting.
Most leadership books share ideas, strategies, and insights, often extrapolated from the business community. I love business books and read plenty of them. Many Christian leadership books offer similar leadership insights, often borrowed directly from the latest business literature. Again, I believe there’s a great deal of wisdom in these books, and leaders in all arenas should glean from them.
But Steve’s book is different. He doesn’t share a leadership principle, and then search for a Bible verse to support it. He starts with the Bible and lets it speak for itself. He challenges readers to “engage the Bible as a primary source for leadership insight.” And he does a remarkable job. Steve is the most biblically grounded leader I know.
Steve uses “The Leadership Triangle” to draw out ten leadership conversations that involve a leader, followers, and a specific situation. The ten conversations he addresses deal with ten extremely practical leadership topics: Favor, perspective, change, failure, burden, worship, risk, humility, mobilization, and judgment.
I cannot go into detail on each of these topics…there’s simply too much to cover. I will tell you that my copy of Steve’s book is marked up more than most books that I read (and I always read with a pen in hand). So, let me take a different approach. I want to share two of my favorite quotes from each chapter.
Chapter 1: FAVOR (Pharaoh and Joseph)
- “There is a difference between the favor of God, and the power of God. The power of God moves in or through us to impact others to advance God’s kingdom. The favor of God moves in or through others to open doors for us to advance God’s Kingdom.”
- “This is the favor principle: Giftedness and training are not enough; to be effective as leaders we need the favor of God.”
Chapter 2: PERSPECTIVE (The Twelve Spies and the People of Israel)
- “The difference between leaders and followers is perspective. The difference between leaders and effective leaders is better perspective.” Bobby Clinton
- “A simple definition of self-awareness includes two facets: first, being honest with yourself about yourself and second, being honest about yourself with others.”
Chapter 3: CHANGE (Samuel and the Elders of Israel)
- “A primary change management skill is the ability to anticipate the unintended consequences of change accurately enough to ensure the problems you inherit are indeed preferable.”
- “Trust is like air; when it’s present we don’t even think about it. When it’s absent we can’t think about anything else.”
Chapter 4: FAILURE (Samuel and King Saul)
- “I have found no biblical examples of leaders who were completely disqualified for competency-based failure. But this doesn’t give us license for mediocre service. Rather it gives us hope for opportunities to learn from our mistakes.”
- “When leaders experience significant failure, they lose confidence. And when they lose confidence, their insecurity gains the upper hand. Their internal leadership identity seesaws…Insecurity in the life of a leader undermines loyalty in the life of a follower.”
Chapter 5: BURDEN (The Prophet Ahijah and Jeroboam)
- “If God has called you to lead a ministry, he has also called you to intercede for that ministry…The primary evidence of a burden in the heart of a leader is the ministry of intercession for followers. Followers most need the prayers of leaders in the moments leaders are most tempted to abandon them.”
- “Prayer for followers and for the mission increases the burden, which increases the need for prayer, turning the process into a positive feedback loop.”
Chapter 6: WORSHIP (King Nebuchadnezzar and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego)
- “I have come to believe the ultimate prize for Satan is not the satisfaction of damning a human spirit to eternal fire. It is robbing God of the worship he deserves from that human spirit, forever.”
- “The greatest gift leaders can offer their followers is a life lived in the overflow of intimacy with God.”
Chapter 7: RISK (Queen Esther and Mordecai)
- “Queen Esther’s story is most often referenced for the importance of timing and opportunity, with the words of Mordecai, “for such a time as this.” We can only make sense of these five words by remembering the five words of Esther, “If I perish, I perish.”
- “The opportunity for your greatest impact is likely to come at a point in your journey when you have the most to lose.”
Chapter 8: HUMILITY (Jesus and the Disciples)
- “Success brings recognition. Someone has to accept the reward. The danger is believing that because you get the reward you were solely responsible for the work.”
- “When a leader doesn’t see fruit, a humble response would be to acknowledge, It might be because of me, and then seek every opportunity to improve. When a leader does see fruit, a humble response would be to acknowledge, It wasn’t because of me alone. Give God glory and others praise.”
Chapter 9: MOBILIZATION (Jesus and the Disciples)
- “Mobilization is a leadership cocktail of vision, communication, and motivation. Leaders must get followers to buy in and act out.”
- “A biblical understanding of spiritual maturity is not based on knowledge but on the size of the gap between knowledge and obedience. A Jesus-follower with limited knowledge that is matched by obedience is more mature than a person with lots of knowledge but little obedience.”
Chapter 10: JUDGMENT (James and the Apostles)
- “The legacy of leaders, and the success of the organizations they lead, will be determined by the cumulative outcome of their most important judgment calls. The chapters in our leadership biography will be organized around the key judgments we make.”
- “Judgment swings on the values of a leader as much as it does the quality of the information available.”
The book concludes with one final chapter, “Becoming a Bible-Centered Leader,” a concept inspired by Bobby Clinton and his insights on Leadership Emergence Theory. Steve offers readers a practical strategy to mine leadership gold from the pages of Scripture, allowing the Bible to become a leader’s primary source for leadership insight.
Plus, you can create a free account at Biblecenteredleadership.com to access a searchable database with much of Steve’s research on the 1,090 leadership conversations documenting the leader, follower, and the situation for each interaction.
I highly recommend The Top 10 Leadership Conversations in the Bible. You can purchase it on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Steve has been a personal mentor, and his insights on biblical leadership are the best I have personally encountered. Get the book and access this valuable online platform. You won’t be disappointed.
