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Erwin McManus: Why Real Leaders Shape the Future

Over the last 30 years, I’ve seen a lot of leaders rise and fall.

I’ve seen unassuming leaders succeed and great talents fail.

It has been, to say the very least, a strange curiosity to watch it all unfold over the years.

Only in retrospect could all of this have been foreseen.

Still, we continue to search for leadership secrets like the forty-niners of old panned for gold.

The title or designation of leader comes to us from many unexpected and unrelated ways.

Sometimes a great invention turns a person into a leader. Sometimes a great idea defines the leader. The invention of a great product from which a great company emerges brings its founder into leadership in their particular field.

On many occasions, it is a great cause that forges a leader.

In critical moments, it is a great crisis that causes a leader to rise out of obscurity.

It’s strange, but to become the leader of the free world, you need to be able to win elections. This also qualifies you to be commander in chief without ever having known combat or even studied military strategy.

We attribute the status and qualities of leadership to individuals who have found themselves in leadership roles without perhaps ever demonstrating any significant leadership acumen. We call pastors leaders.

It’s a heavy burden.

Rarely is it quantified.

Pastors are the best of people; but not often the best of leaders.

It is important for us to reclaim the role and definition of leadership, especially when it comes to the movement of Christ and the revolution He started over 2000 years ago.

What exactly do we mean by leadership?

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emcmanus@churchleaders.com'
Erwin Raphael McManus is an author, speaker, activist, filmmaker and innovator who specializes in the field of developing and unleashing personal and organizational creativity, uniqueness, innovation and diversity. In other words, he gets bored really easily. Erwin also serves as the primary communicator and cultural architect of Mosaic in Los Angeles. He is the author of An Unstoppable Force, a Gold Medallion Award finalist; Chasing Daylight; Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul; The Barbarian Way; Stand Against the Wind, Soul Cravings, and Wide Awake. He also serves as a Research Advisor with The Gallup Organization. He and his wife Kim live in Los Angeles have two children, Aaron and Mariah, and a foster daughter Paty.