LifeBreath Leadership: A faith perspective
The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.
- Genesis 2:7 (NAB)
By the Lord’s word the heavens were made; by the breath of his mouth all their host... For he spoke, and it came to be, commanded, and it stood in place.
- Psalm 33:6, 9 (NAB)
All mortals are but a breath. - Psalm 39:6b
The notion that all of life is but the breath of God is fundamental to the Judeo-Christian faith tradition.
The universe exists by virtue of God’s creative word — expressed in His breath. For God, said is done. Existence is God’s creative and loving self-expression. He expresses Himself and existence occurs. He exhales and life occurs.
In the New American translation of the Bible, there are:
Faith-based LifeBreath Leadership shares the assumption that the Creator is the source of all life and accepts the responsibility that humans, made in the Creator’s own image and likeness, are called to serve as His instruments here on earth.
As such, we are called to breathe life into the individuals and organizations we encounter on the pilgrimage we know as mortal life.
Good leaders bring out the best in people.
Leaders achieve extraordinary organizational performance by helping people perform at their very best — even while encouraging them to greater growth and development. In this way, leaders breathe new life into both their colleagues and their organizations.
A leader’s life breath brings forth new and emerging resources with which both individuals and organizations can pursue their missions.
These resources are infinite, or nearly so. But they operate according to the Laws of Agronomy. These resources emerge only as the result of a constant, cyclic process of preparation, planting, cultivating, harvesting and renewing and reseeding.
When weighing options, visionary leaders always ask themselves: Will this add life to or take life from us — individually and as an organization? For people of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition, this question is fundamentally a moral one.
Effective leaders always look for opportunities to breathe life into people, processes and organizations. It’s the way to tap into an infinite reservoir of resources — God’s bountiful graces. It’s the way to amplify and focus those graces for short and long term growth.
LifeBreath Leadership Links
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