TD Jakes - How Great Leaders Choose Influence Over Affluence
And then it’s very difficult to deal with people who are frustrated. To lead people who are frustrated is quite challenging. Moses became exasperated with them; they were exasperated with him, and he cried out to God, «What am I to do with these people? They are getting on my nerves!» Often, he and God would argue over whose people they were. The Lord told him, «Your people.» Moses responded, «No, no, they’re Your people.» He had that kind of conversation and ability to interact with God that perhaps someone else would have gotten killed for. But Moses was a leader—title or not, he was a leader. There is a distinction between titles and leadership. There’s nothing worse than calling someone by a title when they are not the leader that matches it.
To be sure, being a leader is a difficult task, as the expectations rest on you, whether or not it was your fault. They expect you to fix things that are unfixable and change things that are beyond your grasp. Moses wrestled with a problem he did not create and could not fix, but they charged him as if it were his fault. Thus, you cannot be sensitive and be a leader; you have to be tough enough to understand that you don’t respond to every accusation and allegation, because sometimes the question has more to do with the questioner than it does with you. You’re the one who’s frustrated; you’re the one at the end of your rope, and they’re complaining about being thirsty. I thought to myself, «If there was no water, then wasn’t Moses thirsty too?»
We often forget that our leaders are also one of us, and we expect them to be superhuman, as if they have no need. But in reality, if there was no water to drink, then Moses’s mouth was dry too. Often, the challenge of being a leader is that you are exempt from the opportunity to be human. Moses is one of my heroes—not because he was the perfect leader but because he was a powerful leader. He was a relentless leader who had found the thing he was born to do. He didn’t find it right away; it takes time to find the thing you are meant to do. Most of the time you end up doing things you have to do, not recognizing the thing you were born to do. Then, when you find what you were born to do, you must figure out how to accomplish it, because there are many ways to go about it.
Here’s the first indication of a leader: you must be willing to be unorthodox. There’s nothing worse than putting someone into leadership who is more worried about fitting in than standing out. Unorthodox, in its origin, means to be out of the ordinary—not adhering to previously accepted ideologies, nor mimicking the methods of those around you. All our great leaders throughout history have been unorthodox rule-breakers. If you expect to be written about, you must be willing to break some rules. If you care more about fitting in, then just be part of the status quo. But nobody writes about people who follow the status quo. When Martin Luther nailed the 96 theses to the church door, as history shows, he was willing to be unorthodox and faced ridicule and criticism. They even tried to kill him because he wouldn’t act like one of them.
Martin Luther was an unorthodox leader, just as Martin Luther King Jr. was. He didn’t quite fit in with Malcolm X, nor with the Panthers, nor with the generation before him. His method combined courage, like the Panthers, with peace, like a Christian, making him an oddity. Are you willing to be odd? Are you willing to be different? Nobody follows people who follow trends. A great leader creates trends, stands out, and does things differently. Moses, in my estimation, is one of the greatest leaders of the Old Testament. He followed the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he was a great leader in his own right, so much so that God protected him throughout his life.
Not that he didn’t face peril, nor have a rough childhood, nor that he wasn’t denied the right to grow up in a normal Israelite family—all that was taken from him, but it shaped him. He grew up a misfit; he couldn’t quite fit in as an Israelite or Hebrew because he was raised as an Egyptian. He spoke like an Egyptian, was educated like an Egyptian, and understood the protocols of an Egyptian. He had never lived a day in his adult life in a slave quarter, yet he was called to lead people he was kin to, even though he wasn’t their kind. He couldn’t stay with the people of his kin because he wasn’t of their kind. One of the proclivities of being a leader is the ability to adapt and be comfortable with being controversial. He is not just the pastorpreneur of the era; he is the leader of the Old Testament church.
The first inkling of understanding of the church comes through the Ecclesia of the called-out ones. They were called out of slavery to establish not only the Old Testament church, of which he was the shepherd leading the sheep, but he was also the head of state, organizing a nation of once-slaves who cried out to God for freedom, and Moses came to deliver them from Pharaoh’s oppression. He was delivering people that didn’t always like him. If you have too much of a need to be liked, you can’t be a great leader because you’re too much of a pleaser. I’m just giving you some guidelines: if it becomes more important to you to be liked than to lead, you’re probably not a leader; you just have a title. You’re in a tough position because something you do will frustrate someone, no matter which decision you make.
Now let’s go deeper. The metrics of leadership are movement. You can’t say you’re a leader if you don’t have any metrics to prove you are moving things. So don’t rely solely on the title, nor just on preaching. How much difference are you making, and how do you quantify the distance between with you and without you? If without you looks just like with you, then you’re not a leader; you’re a placeholder. Are you hearing what I’m saying? We want to have some measurements. What are the measurements that you can use to determine whether you’re a leader? Well, this is not just for me; I’m not a leader. Everyone in this room is a leader in some capacity. They have a degree of leadership responsibility because at its core, leadership means influence.
If you have any influence, even if it’s just over your children, your sister, your mother, or even just over yourself, you have the responsibility to adapt to understanding yourself as a leader. If not, you have to wait for someone to follow. Are you hearing what I’m saying? Leadership is what the Bible calls favor. Yes, because if leadership is influence, influence is favor. It’s not a title, nor is it visibility. It may increase your affluence, but more stage time doesn’t equate to influence. There’s a difference between affluence and influence. The stage gives you affluence but doesn’t necessarily mean you have influence. Sometimes, the people who are not on the stage have more influence than those who stand on it, and often, they are the ones who hire those on the stage. Yet we tend to desire the spotlight, preferring to be in the light than behind the scenes.
The person who owns the building may not be seen, but they have the influence to decide who stands on the stage. Are you hearing what I’m saying? The actor gains attention; they can’t go anywhere without being recognized, while people take photographs of them everywhere, but it is the studio that holds real influence. Are you hearing what I’m saying? Many singers became very famous but died broke. They had affluence, fan clubs, and tabloids, yet they ended up with little to show for what they had, as affluence does not equate to influence. We are not trained to seek influence; we are trained to look for affluence. We prosper in areas that give us affluence. We want to be preachers, football players, basketball stars, and hip-hop artists who want the stage.
We do not want to own the label or the company or the studio. What we model is affluence at a time when the world is looking for someone with influence. Affluence shines on the stage; influence shines in the boardroom. Are you hearing what I’m saying? I feel that God is getting ready to shift some of you into places of influence, and your influence is about to increase. You’ve been disappointed with life because you never got affluence; however, the Lord told me to tell you He didn’t give you affluence because He’s getting ready to give you something greater! I’m talking to someone.
So when I talk to leaders, I’m talking to you, even if you don’t know it yet. The world may not see you as a leader yet, but they recognize your talent. They don’t see your leadership because you’ve received affluence but not influence. Influence is about to break forth in your life like never before, as soon as you let go of your addiction to affluence. There’s nothing worse than hiring someone in an influential position who only seeks affluence. And nothing worse than having a pastor who is a leader but only wants to preach. Pastoring is much bigger than preaching; it involves leading, examining metrics, and determining how much distance you’ve covered. It’s not just quantity; it’s quality. It’s not always about having a bigger church; it’s about having a better church.
We’ve fallen in love with «bigger» and not «better.» The metrics we may be judged by might not be numerical; it might be the depth of how you’ve influenced people’s lives. But many don’t want that, as being a great pastor earns little credit compared to having a large church. America, in particular, idolizes affluence. We stand in line for hours to take pictures of people on the red carpet with affluence, while the people who negotiate contracts for those on the red carpet walk past, and we pay them no attention.
We do not glorify leadership; we glorify light. But I find it important—normally, I would teach something like this at a leadership conference. I have some things planned for that, but I’m giving you a preview today, in case you cannot make it, or to help you come prepared. The Bible says in Luke 2:52 that Jesus increased in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man. Favor with man is influence; favor with God is influence too. To have favor with God means I can speak up to Him and things will change.
What’s powerful about Luke 2:52 is that Jesus increased. If Jesus increased, that means I can increase too! I can start with little influence and end up with great influence. My influence can grow, and one indicator of growing influence is the level of your attacks. Some people have not earned the right to be heavily attacked because they don’t have great enough influence. When the enemy sees that you are about to gain greater influence, he sends greater demons to attack your life to sabotage your destiny. Hallelujah! The devil doesn’t realize he’s warning you of what’s to come by the level of attack that precedes your next move. Who am I talking to today?