"If you need a title to have people follow, you're not really a leader," my boss said. I was a young businesswoman struggling to carve a place in an all-male environment. Faced with open hostility from male colleagues and borderline sexual harassment from subordinates, I guess I was hoping a title would rescue me like Maid Marian in a Robin Hood tale. But my boss would have none of it. Perhaps he knew better than to rescue me from an opportunity to develop leadership ability. Instead he offered simple advice.
"People follow success," he said. "Be successful in your job, and then help them be successful in theirs."
His comments reminded me of what Jesus' said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." John 12:32. Jesus' success in healing disease and lifting others up, drew multitudes to him. The Gospels speak a lot about the inner circle of 12 disciples who followed Jesus almost everywhere he went. Still there were hundreds, even thousands, of people who came to Jesus to be healed, and to learn more about spirituality and eternal life.
