Learning to Follow the Leader When the Leader Is You!: A Biblical Guide to Effective and Practical Leadership

By Dr. Crystal L. Williams

Are you a ministry leader who needs to reignite your fire and passion for leading God’s people? Author Crystal L. Williams seeks to help you light your flame and discover what godly leadership should look like.

Learning to Follow the Leader When the Leader Is You offers a journey through the Word, citing the many examples of leadership—beginning with God himself, who is the ultimate leader. Leaders of all kinds can gain insight and practical knowledge from this easy-to-read guide, which combines experience, education in leadership, and the revelation of Word through the Spirit of God. This collision of theories and the Living Word presents a framework that not only will promote effective leadership in the church but can also be applied to leadership of any kind for a believer.

Examining leadership from a biblical standpoint, this guide uses scripture to address the many areas of struggle that leaders often face, and offers assistance to those who want lead by following God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664256224

Dr. Crystal L. Williams

holds a Master of Arts Degree in Educational Leadership from Governors State University and a Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership and Organizational Change from Roosevelt University. She has been educating elementary students for more than thirty years. She is also the founder and CEO of I Am the Woman Ministries: QueendomBuildHers. Williams is a daughter, a sister, and a mother of one.

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Copyright © 2022 Dr. Crystal L. Williams.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation,

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-5620-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5621-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5622-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022901496

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/29/2022

This book is dedicated to my fifth-grade teacher,

Mrs. Jeotha Johnson. She will always be my favorite teacher.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1     God Said! The Origin of Leadership

Chapter 2     It’s All in the Family—Leadership Learned in the Family

Chapter 3     Leaders Should Be Servants—What is a Servant Leader?

Chapter 4     We’re All in This Together—Delegation, Shared Leadership, and Shared Vision

Chapter 5     Passing the Torch—Mentoring and Mantling

Chapter 6     Building a Winning Team—Team Building and Rebuilding That Produces a Culture of Success

Chapter 7     Power Outages, Power Struggles, and Power Surges

Chapter 8     The Empowered Leader: Self-Empowerment and Empowering Others

Chapter 9     Put a Prayer on It! Leaders Are Intercessors

Chapter 10   21-Day Prayer Focus for Leaders

FOREWORD

Dr. Crystal Williams, a very devout and saintly woman who dearly loves the Lord and the Lord’s people, has captured the skill of keeping it simple and yet so spiritually rich. After reading this invaluable treatise on leadership, immediately I could relate its style and simplicity to that of the teaching of our Lord, Jesus Christ. He was the Greatest Teacher known to men; his messages, parables, instructions, and sermons were always in the simplest form, using simple words in simple statements that give the greatest insight and understanding. Dr. Williams structured her subject matter from Let’s Follow the Leader to Power Outages, Power Struggles, and Power Surges in such a manner as to give rich revelational insight into what spiritual leadership is all about. Her biblical references and illustrations from biblical characters lend to the fertile and fruitful essence throughout this composition.

Many have attempted to send forth messages into the world in book form, but the anointing and consecration of Dr. Crystal Williams and the grace of God and her godly lifestyle have awarded her a place among the best of the gospel writers of our times.

I was so honored and blessed to be given the task of making an introductory statement to this masterful discourse on the importance of leadership, which I strongly recommend to all who see the need for developing and perfecting leadership in their ministry.

My personal congratulations to the author, Dr. Crystal Williams, on your excellent work in the ministry of our Lord.

I am,

By his grace,

Bishop Ocie Booker

Prelate of 1st Jurisdiction of Illinois of the Church of God in Christ

PREFACE

LET’S PLAY FOLLOW THE LEADER

Did you grow up playing the childhood game Follow the Leader? Fond memories flood my mind of how during this game, my playmates and I would first choose a leader. The clouds of my memory now dense from the many days of yesteryear somehow fail me as to how we, in our young minds, determined who would be the leader. It could have been that the oldest among the group would be the likely candidate to lead us in this time of play. It may have been the child with the most dominant of all our personalities who was selected to rise as the leader. Quite possibly the selection process may in fact have been as random as the winner of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Whatever the course of action taken to make the final selection determining the one who would stand out as the leader, the game proceeded with a positioned leader ready to advance the group in play. Although I may be unsure of the process of selection, there is one thing I am quite sure of, and that is that whoever was chosen in that coveted spot was revered as the one who was to be followed.

The simplicity of this game may have been more theoretically complex than we knew at the time of our folly. This game profoundly taught us very early in our young lives the basic constituents of the notion of leadership. We learned, first, that there was a need for a leader—at least for our intended purposes, and because of that need, a selection process was needed to produce a willing candidate for the job. Second, we learned that once the selection was made, we as a group were obligated—by the rules of the game—to then take on the role as followers and adhere to that role until the conclusion of the game, or for whatever reason, another leader was selected. Third, I am sure that we also learned that leadership could vary in how it looks from person to person. There were some leaders in the game who were aggressive in their leading—running the team in and out of the wildest of places, making the game fast and challenging to keep up with the pace. Others who took the helm of the game may have chosen a slower-paced velocity, moving the team in a more gradual progression. The variation in styles of the game’s leaders could no doubt be very similar to the leadership styles we see today.

In 2006, after becoming interested in the topic of leadership, I received a master’s degree in educational leadership, and then in 2017 earned a doctorate of education in educational leadership and organizational change. During my studies, I have looked at leadership from many angles and done a considerable amount of research on how it impacts teaching, learning, and other educational outcomes. Although I selected the doctoral program because it was a continuation of my master’s program, which was in leadership, I found that the latter part of the title was of the most interest to me as a leader both in education and in the kingdom of God. The concept of organizational change began to resonant in me as I completed this intense course of study, and I began to piece together the concept of leadership and the significance of the changing (growing, moving, progressing) of the organization. In my study, I found that an organization is an entity that must be nurtured and cultivated at the direction of its leader. Every organization is much like a baby; in its early stages there are a set of needs specific to that stage of its life. As time progresses and the organization continues to develop, that initial set of needs begins to change. Much like the needs of a newborn change as it grows and develops, the needs of an organization also change with its growing needs. I learned that the needs of the schools of yesteryear and those specific to today’s schools are light years in difference. Why? This is because the organization—in this case the entire system of education—has changed with the times due to advancements in technology, a decline of morality, economic challenges, and the list of factors goes on. So, today’s leader must be open and prepared to facilitate the growth and transformation of an entity and keep it stable while ensuring that the mission of the organization is being accomplished. This great task must be accomplished while considering the countless factors that will also impact the organization.

It is safe to say that leadership effects