You're Leading Like a CEO. Jesus Led Like a Shepherd. Here's the Difference.
Why the model you're leading from matters more than the results you're producing
There’s a story most leaders know but few sit with long enough to feel uncomfortable.
A shepherd has a hundred sheep. He counts them at the end of the day and comes up one short. So he leaves the ninety-nine and goes out into the dark to find the one.
Terrible risk management. Extraordinary pastoral instinct.
Jesus tells this story in Luke 15, and it’s worth slowing down on before you move past it. Because in that moment, He’s not just telling you what God is like. He’s showing you what leadership is supposed to look like.
The ninety-nine are fine. They’re accounted for. The numbers look good. But the Shepherd isn’t asking what the numbers look like. He’s asking where the one went.
That question is the whole point of this article.
The Title Jesus Chose for Himself
Before we get into what shepherd leadership looks like in practice, it’s worth pausing on why the title matters at all.
Jesus could have called Himself anything. King. Commander. Architect. Founder.
He chose Shepherd.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
— John 10:11 NIV
That choice wasn’t accidental. It was intentional.
In the ancient world, shepherding wasn’t a prestigious occupation. It was low-status, physically demanding work. Shepherds smelled like their animals. They carried scars from predators. They spent long nights outside in the cold while everyone else was indoors.
And Jesus looked at every metaphor available to Him and said: that one. That’s who I am to my people.
I’ve spent years working inside organizations, sitting with leaders who are brilliant strategists, gifted communicators, and genuinely talented executives. What I’ve noticed is that the gap in most leadership isn’t skill. It’s care. Leaders know how to build. Fewer of them know how to tend.
The Shepherd in John 10 doesn’t just manage a flock. He knows his sheep by name. He goes looking for the one who wanders. He positions himself between his flock and whatever is coming for them.
That’s a fundamentally different posture than running an organization. Most organizations look at who shows up and writes off who’s not there.
The Reality That Exposes Everything
Here’s the tension most high-achieving leaders won’t name out loud: you want the results of excellent organizational leadership and the heart of genuine pastoral care at the same time. And those two things pull in opposite directions.
Growth metrics reward efficiency. Pastoral care is almost always inefficient.
Org charts reward clarity of roles. Knowing your people deeply requires moving past the role entirely.
Systems reward repeatability. Human beings are gloriously unrepeatable.
I’ve been in rooms where the strategy was precise and the growth numbers were impressive and the people running the place were quietly exhausted, disconnected, and wondering if anyone above them actually knew their name.
That’s what happens when the system becomes more important than the people it was built to serve.
Jesus draws a sharp line between two types of leadership figures in John 10. There’s the good shepherd, and there’s the hired hand.
The hired hand isn’t a villain. He’s just someone who runs when the wolf shows up. He doesn’t own the outcome. He doesn’t carry the cost. And when things get difficult, he’s gone.
The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he wolf comes, he abandons the sheep and runs away.
— John 10:12 NIV
That verse should be uncomfortable for anyone in a leadership role. It’s because it’s accusatory but because it forces the question: when things get hard for the people under your care, do you move toward them or away from them?
What Shepherds Actually Do
So what does this look like when you’re leading a real team, running a real organization, or pastoring a real church?
1. Shepherds know who’s missing.
The first thing a shepherd does at the end of the day is count. Not to report numbers upward. To find out if anyone is gone.
When’s the last time you paused the strategy long enough to notice who had gone quiet? Not a mass email, not a team announcement. A specific person, a real conversation, five minutes of actual presence.
The Shepherd in John 10 calls his own sheep by name. That’s not a small detail. That’s the whole model. You cannot lead people you don’t know. And I don’t mean knowing their title or their output. I mean knowing what they’re carrying, what season they’re actually in, what they’re afraid of going into next quarter.
This takes time you feel like you don’t have. Do it anyway.
2. Shepherds move toward the threat.
The ancient shepherd carried a rod and a staff. The rod was a weapon. The staff guided the flock. Both were tools of protection, not just management.
Shepherd leadership requires a willingness to put yourself between your people and whatever is coming for them.
Saying no to good things because they cost your people too much is one of the hardest disciplines in leadership. And one of the most necessary.
3. Shepherds go after the one who wanders.
Back to Luke 15. The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to find the one.
Think about what that actually costs. Time. Energy. The risk of leaving the rest unattended. The vulnerability of going out looking when the result isn’t guaranteed.
In practice, the people who wander off are rarely the rebels. They’re usually the ones who quietly stopped feeling like they mattered. They disengaged slowly. They got passed over or overlooked and didn’t say anything about it. And then one day you looked up and they were gone.
Shepherd leadership means you notice before it gets to that point. You pay attention to changes in energy and engagement. When someone who is typically present starts going silent, that’s worth a conversation. Not a performance check-in. A real one.
The Cost Nobody Warns You About
Let’s be honest about something: this model is expensive.
Leading like a shepherd costs you time you could spend on strategy. It costs you the clean simplicity of treating people as roles instead of as human beings. It costs you the efficiency of running a tight machine where everything is optimized.
Jesus describes the cost plainly. The good shepherd “lays down his life for the sheep.” That’s not hyperbole dressed up as leadership language. In the ancient world, shepherds died protecting their flocks. They protected them against lions, against bears, against thieves.
You likely won’t face a literal predator. But you will face moments where you have to choose between what’s fast and what’s right. Between what builds your reputation and what serves your people.
I’ve turned down opportunities because my team needed me present. I’ve slowed timelines because the people we had weren’t ready for what came next. I’ve had hard conversations with high-capacity leaders who were producing results while destroying trust underneath them.
Every one of those decisions felt costly in the moment.
Every one of them was the right call.
What Shifts When You Lead This Way
Here’s what I’ve seen happen when leaders make the shift from managing performance to actually tending people: the culture changes underneath you without you having to manufacture it.
People stop protecting themselves and start contributing. They stop performing safety and start taking real ownership. Trust moves through the organization in ways that no onboarding process or values statement can produce.
Because people follow leaders who actually see them.
Your people have to come first. Projects wait. Productivity metrics are hollow if the people generating them are quietly falling apart.
John 10:14 says, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” That mutual knowing is the foundation of every high-trust organization I’ve ever been inside. It’s not a program. It’s a practical advice. It’s built one conversation at a time, over time, by leaders who decide that knowing their people is a non-negotiable part of the job.
Where You Start
You don’t have to restructure your leadership approach this week.
Start with one move.
Block individual time. Put it on your calendar like you would any critical commitment. Fifteen minutes with someone on your team. No agenda except asking how they’re really doing and meaning it.
Learn to read what’s shifting. Shepherds develop instincts. You can too. Pay attention to who has gone quiet. Who has lost the energy they used to bring. Who is still showing up in body but checked out in practice.
Create room for honesty. Most organizational cultures quietly punish vulnerability. People learn fast to perform strength and hide struggle. Shepherd leaders build environments where it’s okay to not have it together. Where someone can say “I’m overwhelmed” without worrying about what that admission costs them.
Celebrate health alongside results. What gets celebrated gets repeated. If the only thing you recognize is outcomes, you’ll build a team that produces outcomes at the expense of everything else. If you celebrate sustainable health, you’ll build a team that can produce for the long run.
The CEO asks how to scale. The Shepherd asks where the one went.
Both questions matter. But if you only ever ask one of them, you already know which model you’re operating from.
Jesus didn’t build an institution. He built a movement, through twelve people He actually knew. He knew their weaknesses. He knew their histories. He called them by name and went looking for them when they wandered.
That’s the model we’re called to follow. And let me say this: It’s not the most efficient path. But it’s the one that actually changes people.
And the leaders who change people outlast every leader who simply managed them.
Know your people, leader.
— Jared