Peter Koestenbaum in  Leadership: the inner side of Greatness, a philosophy for leaders, challenges leaders to achieve greatness in their enterprises. Greatness, as he defines it, is “the commitment to relinquish mediocrity forever. It is chosen as a way of life because it is right, because it ennobles the human spirit, because it honors the fact that we are alive, and because it is our meaning for being on this earth. Greatness is the struggle against mediocrity. It is the upgrading from good to excellent. It is the struggle against nihilism – which is the unwillingness to confront the painful mystery of death. Death makes one honest. It gives one the sense of time. Death is the source of anxiety and the motivation for seeking depth. It is to live out the belief that perfection matters, that excellence – as in sports and the arts – is worth pursuing for its own sake.

Greatness also means appreciating the mystery of being, the miracle of creation, the inexplicable truth that the world exists, and the wonder that consciousness and perception exist. Greatness is having a sense of the aesthetic and a feeling for the religious. Greatness is appreciating the value of art and the religious sensibilities of humankind.

There are resistances to greatness. There is dependency – the unwillingness to take personal responsibility. Children are taken care of; adults take care of themselves. Some people, regrettably, act out the system’s resistance to change. They ignore the anxiety and fear induced by change. Change leads to uncertainty, to insecurity. We feel out of touch, and it hurts. Resistance to vision is blindness. Resistance to reality is denial.

The opposite to greatness is depression. Greatness is the decision to live, to say yes to the Spirit of God, to choose to be constructive. Depression is to want to die, to be destructive, to obstruct progress – for the depressed person is not only sad but chooses not to be helped.”

My vision for my own life as one of the leaders of the Chapel, and for the Chapel, is to work to achieve greatness. On my desk is a framed photo of a boardwalk leading to the beach and the horizon with these words underneath it: “VISION: A Leader’s Job Is To Look Into The Future, And To See The Organization Not As It Is….But As It Can Become.”

What can we become? What has God in store for us? He has already blessed us in so many ways, and enabled us to be a blessing to others. Let us take these words to heart: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

Vision, according to Peter Koestenbaum, means “thinking big, maintaining perspective, being relentlessly alert and clear. Vision is valuing intellectual brilliance. Vision means thinking for yourself, maintaining a clear image of your distant goals – in short, being not only reactive but resolutely proactive. It means having a sense of legacy and destiny and at all times, keeping that sense in view. Visioning means to think big and new…. A visionary leader sees the larger perspective.”

I need a vision for the next five years of my life. I need a vision for my work at the Chapel, and for my life as a whole. In one sense I could continue doing what I have been doing and be very productive. But what if I need to change my priorities and concentrate on something differently? What does the Chapel need to become? What is my vision for the ministries of the Chapel? What is my vision for my marriage and family life? What is my vision for my intellectual life?

Obviously these are important enough for me to make them a subject of my prayers. I should be asking what does God want me to do? What is his vision for my life? What is his vision for the Chapel?

This could be an exciting time of discovery for myself. It should also be an exciting time for our Chapel Long Range Planning Committee which is engaged in this sort of thinking. I wonder what the outcome will be. Please pray for us as we wrestle with these questions.

I came across Peter Koestenbaum in an interview in the business magazine FAST COMPANY in 2000. He is a philosopher who helps business leaders to be successful human beings. He was a professor in the Philosophy Department at San Jose State University for thirty-four years and has consulted with many large international companies. I have benefited from several of his books, and recently started reading the new and revised edition of Leadership: the inner side of Greatness, a philosophy for leaders.

In the Preface he writes that “A leader must wrestle with inward issues. He or she is expected to have great aspirations, confront great frustrations, achieve great self-control, suffer great betrayals, and manifest great compassion. Addressing the personal side of leadership also requires attention to vision and to scope, for the leader’s mind must be all-encompassing. The executive is challenged always to keep his or her inner eye on the larger picture and to find ways of reacting quickly. The personal side of leadership requires attention to such varied virtues as resourcefulness and trust, confidence and strength. It means learning the uses of power and developing a flexible imagination. The personal side of leadership challenges you to give meaning to your life through the quality of your work – how you manage your career or job, and how you invest your time and energy. The personal side of leadership also recognizes that deep thoughts and clever ideas are not enough. Executives must remind themselves that they are measured by cold effectiveness and hard results, for leadership is tied to survival.”

In his chapter on the Nine Keys to Business Wisdom, and remember that all enterprises are businesses, whether they are families, churches, charities, missions, ministries, or other non-profits, as well as for-profit businesses, Koestenbaum addresses the frustrations of leadership. “Leaders can be targets of severe hostility – not that it is never deserved; sometimes it is. Nevertheless the anger of others is difficult to bear….Specifically, leading requires ownership of the meaning of personal responsibility and accountability. It means fully internalizing the human truth that, in your world, nothing happens unless you make it happen….Leadership requires teamwork….Specifically, a leader is a person who is truly effective in achieving worthy results in any field, not matter what the obstacles and with unfailing regard for human beings. A leader is a person of unimpeachable character, an individual thoroughly to be trusted. Leaders are open-minded – good listeners, flexible, secure in the knowledge that they alone do not have all the answers….Leaders lead by teaching, that is, empowering, and what they teach is how to attain a different, uncommon, but highly specific form of intelligence…you must model leadership.”

I am beginning a series of messages on Second Timothy, which is all about leadership. St. Paul is modeling leadership to Timothy and teaching him the requirements of leadership in the church. I learned leadership from my first boss, colleague, mentor, and later friend, John Stott, who will be 89 years of age on April 27. Every year since I served with him at All Souls, Langham Place, London, England, I have drawn on his example and his writing to hone my leadership skills. A new biography on him has just been published entitled, Basic Christian, by Roger Steer. I was interviewed for part of it and paid tribute to what John Stott taught me about the craft of pastoral ministry, and of being personally accountable. If you have not read any books by John Stott I recommend them all. His commentary on Second Timothy, Guard the Gospel, is invaluable.