A few years ago, I kept pushing my team to grow in an area I had slowly stopped working on myself.
I wanted them to read God’s word and stretch their leadership, and I pushed them often. The problem was that my own growth in that exact area had flatlined.
And guess what? Nothing changed until I did.
The moment I picked the discipline back up in my own life, publicly and imperfectly, the whole team started following the behavior that was being modeled. Another leadership lesson and speech would have added nothing, because they needed to watch me go first and see what that discipline produced.
It wasn’t the discipline that caught their attention; it was its fruit. And when they asked about what was producing that fruit, I had the chance to invite them into the discipline.
I’ve watched that pattern repeat ever since.
Your people will follow you exactly as far as you’re still traveling yourself, and no further.
That’s a hard sentence for anyone carrying a title, and Scripture puts it into one verse about a priest most of us skim past.
The Verse That Sets the Order
About eighty years after the first exiles returned from Babylon, a priest named Ezra made the four-month journey home with a new wave of families. Jerusalem had a rebuilt temple by then, but the people in the city had started to drift from their faith, and worship was back while obedience stayed thin.
Ezra arrived with letters from King Artaxerxes and authority to appoint judges across the region. The writer walks right past those credentials to explain why the gracious hand of God rested on him.
For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.
Ezra 7:10 NIV
Study came first, then observance, and teaching waited at the back of the line.
Ezra carried the law into Jerusalem as a man who had already spent years living under it. That sequence is today’s whole lesson, and most leaders run it backwards.
Live It Before You Teach It
The order only works one direction. Do it, then teach it.
Pick the quality you most want your people to grow into, whether that’s discipline or honesty or something else. Then ask yourself an uncomfortable question. Am I practicing this myself right now, or am I only recommending it?
Ezra practiced in private for years before he opened his mouth in public, and the verse goes out of its way to say so.
The rule holds in every organization, secular or sacred.
The CEO who wants a culture of transparency while dodging every hard conversation on his calendar. The manager who preaches being customer-focused but hasn’t talked to a customer in two years. Teams sense the gap long before anyone names it.
Teaching what you’ve stopped practicing is how leaders slowly lose their influence amongst the people they lead, and almost nobody notices the erosion until it’s far along.
People can tell the difference between words and action.
That difference shows up most clearly at the edge of how far you’ve actually gone.
Your Growth Sets the Ceiling for Everyone You Lead
Most leaders never see this ceiling. You cannot take anyone further than you’ve gone yourself.
Your people inherit the exact wall you quit at, and they hit it and quietly stop, because you’re the map they’re using. The map ends wherever you stopped exploring.
Jesus said it bluntly.
Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.
Matthew 15:14 NIV
A leader who has stopped seeing can only take people as far as his own blindness, and then everyone lands in the ditch together.
Think of a mountain guide. They’re known as sherpas. A sherpa can only take you as high as he’s already climbed. He can describe the summit all he wants, but past the highest point he’s personally reached, he’s as lost as you are.
Leadership runs on the same rule, because you can only lead people from where you’ve actually been and never from where you once hoped to go.
Israel learned this at the Jordan. The river was at flood stage, and the water didn’t stop until the priests carrying the ark stepped in and got their feet wet.
The whole nation crossed on dry ground because the leaders went into the water first.
Nobody follows you into water you’re unwilling to step into yourself.
The Myth That Quietly Retires Leaders
A quiet myth that runs through leadership circles is that once you earn the title, growth belongs to the people beneath you.
That belief has retired more leaders than age ever has.
Look at Ezra again. By the time he left Babylon he was already described as a teacher well versed in the Law of Moses, and he still devoted himself to studying it. The expert kept acting like a student, and that’s exactly why God’s hand stayed on him.
Paul refused the myth too, even near the end of his life.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Philippians 3:12 NIV
The most fruitful leader in the early church still saw real distance left to cover.
The day you decide you’ve arrived is the day you start coasting on who you used to be. That’s a dangerous place to sit.
Growth stays on your job description for as long as anyone is following you.
The reward for staying on the road is that it gets brighter the longer you walk it.
Stop walking, and the light stops growing, for you and for everyone following your lamp. You can coach people to a standard you no longer hold yourself to, right up until the day it catches up with you.
Paul policed his own life most strictly because he asked so much of everyone else.
The private discipline is what earns the public voice. Skip it long enough and the words keep coming while the weight behind them drains away.
You can fake it for a season, but a career is long enough to expose it.
I’ve sat with leaders who built entire cultures on standards they abandoned years earlier. The credibility usually leaks out slowly, and eventually they watch themselves fall to the least capable person in the room.
Closing the gap starts with an honest look at where you stand.
Four Questions for This Season
Answer these about this season of your life, and be honest.
Can you name something you learned in the last year that genuinely changed how you lead?
Is there a discipline you’re asking your people to keep that you’ve quietly dropped yourself?
How long has it been since you did something hard on purpose, with no audience and no applause?
If your people copied exactly how you’re growing right now, where would they end up?
Jesus tied following Him to a choice made every day, saying anyone who wants to be His disciple must take up their cross daily and follow Him. DAILY is the word that convicts most of us, and it’s also the word that keeps a leader alive.
Growth gets decided again every morning, on a road you either keep walking or quietly leave.
Sit with the hardest question. That’s the edge of where you stopped moving.
People match the motion they can see.
I’ve found no faster lever for culture change. The leader visibly starts moving, and the organization follows.
So start moving, in this order.
Your Next Three Moves
1. Name the Place You Stopped Growing
Write down the one area where you’ve been asking your people to grow while you’ve been coasting. Be specific enough that it stings a little, because vague confessions produce vague change. Go back to the four questions and circle the one you answered fastest with an excuse.
2. Start Growing Again Before You Say a Word
This week, take the first step in that area yourself, before you announce anything to anyone about it. Ezra studied and lived the law before he taught it, and your team deserves that sequence. Let them notice the change before you explain it.
3. Invite a Few People to Watch
None of us keeps moving for long on our own. Pick two people who love you enough to be honest, tell them what you’re working on, and give them permission to call you back onto the road when you stall. They’ll notice the drift before you do.
Get Your Feet Wet
The most generous thing you can give your people is a leader who KEEPS becoming someone worth following.
Scripture remembers Ezra as a man God’s hand rested on, and it tells us why in one line about what he did first. That order is open to every one of us this week.
Keep growing, leader. Because your team wants to grow with you.
— Jared
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As I was reading this I was reminded of my time in the navy. where quite a few of the people in charge who were overweight would tell people to get in shape. They were in a position of authority but their words were hollow and carried no weight behind them because they had stopped being what they expected others to become.
Great insights as always Pastor.