Christian Business Concepts
Christian Business Concepts
Developing the Christian Leader Within: A Biblical Approach to Business Leadership
We would love to hear from you. Send us a text message now by clicking HERE!
Leadership that transforms business starts with a heart aligned with God's purpose. Whether you're an entrepreneur, manager, or aspiring professional, cultivating leadership rooted in biblical principles touches every aspect of your life—professionally and personally.
This episode unpacks the essential characteristics of Christian leadership: faith that trusts God completely, integrity that acts honestly regardless of cost, servanthood that puts others first, courage that stands firm in difficult decisions, stewardship that manages resources wisely, and discernment guided by the Holy Spirit. Drawing from scriptural foundations like Joshua 1:9 and Matthew 20:26-28, we explore how these traits can be practically developed in business environments.
The journey begins with self-assessment—rating where you currently stand with these leadership qualities and identifying specific areas for growth. Successful Christian leadership development requires deepening your spiritual foundation through daily prayer and Bible study, cultivating servant leadership by identifying needs you can meet without reward, building ethical decision-making skills, developing courage through gradual steps of faith, mentoring others to multiply your influence, and learning to be led by the Spirit in every decision.
We examine the business philosophy that drove Wegmans Food Markets to Fortune's top 100 companies list every year since 1998: "Never think about yourself, always think and help others." This servant-leadership approach delivers both ethical and financial results when applied consistently.
The greatest challenge for Christian business leaders often lies in balancing profit and purpose. While Scripture never condemns money itself, it warns against making profit the ultimate goal: "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). Instead, profit should function as a tool for kingdom advancement rather than becoming an idol that displaces devotion to God.
Want to become the leader God designed you to be? This episode provides practical steps to develop the Christian leader within you—empowering you to lead with faith, serve with purpose, and impact your workplace for Christ.
Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host, Harold Milby. Christian Business Concepts is dedicated to guiding companies and business owners in becoming effective, efficient and successful through God's Word and godly principles. Now, here's your host, Harold Milby.
Speaker 2:Thanks, kelly, and welcome everybody to this week's Christian Business Concepts podcast. I'm your host, harold Milby, and I'm so glad that you've decided to download and listen to this week's episode. You know whether this is your first time listening or you're a regular listener. You know my prayer is that you'll be encouraged, enlightened and empowered by what you hear today. You know CBC exists to help you apply biblical business principles in your business, in your career and your personal life. That will bring you true godly success. You know God wants his people to be successful. His word tells us that in multiple times throughout the Bible and I'm really, you know, humbled to be a part of that. I really am. I ask you to please help us grow the CBC community by sharing the link to this episode with other people four or five others and by posting it on your Facebook or your LinkedIn pages. We sure would appreciate that. You can also send an email to some of your friends and family with a link in it as well. So any way that you can to help us grow the CBC community, we would greatly appreciate that, because we feel like it's worthy. We feel like it's a worthy ministry and we're excited to hear about some of the businesses and things that are changing, that are being created, and all from a biblical perspective, with biblical principles, and we're excited about that. Now, before we go any further, I want to give a big shout out to Brisbane, queensland, in Australia, for so many downloads this week. We sure do love you guys in Australia. We thank you so much for being a part and we thank all of you who download our podcast. We thank you all for being such a great part of this family, and so we want to show our appreciation, so I try to do that every week. Now in our company spotlight this week, I want to mention Wegman Food Markets. They're based here in the US.
Speaker 2:When Robert Wegman took over the small little grocery retailer from his family, he brought a very important I'll call it a spiritual philosophy, and he brought this with him. When he came in and he took over at Wegmans. He said never think about yourself, always think and help others, always think about and help others, and that was a philosophy that has driven Wegmans throughout the years. The first thing that he did when he took over, he raised everybody's pay that worked for the company, and then he didn't stop there. He created a scholarship program and actually since 1984, when this scholarship program has started, they've paid out over $110 million and they've helped more than 35,000 employees. They are one of the only 12 companies that can say that they've made Fortune's list of 100 top companies to work for since that magazine started that list in 1998. Since 1998, they've made that list of the top 100 companies to work for in the world and they've made that list. There's only 12 companies that have made that list of the top 100 companies to work for in the world and they've made that list. There's only 12 companies that have made that list every year since they started it and they give millions of dollars to Christian schools, they donate millions of pounds of healthy food to local communities each year, and it's all because of that philosophy never think about yourself, always help others.
Speaker 2:So we say to Wegmans keep it up, folks. You guys are doing a great job and you're really being a witness out there in the world as to what a godly business really is. Now I want to say this I want to say that whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a manager, or maybe an aspiring professional or a business owner, it's so very, very important that you begin to cultivate leadership that's within you. You need to cultivate that, you need to grow that, and it needs to be rooted in faith and integrity and service. And so that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about developing that Christian leader that's within you. And how do you develop that? How do you move that forward? I want us to understand the importance of doing that, of developing that godly leader within you.
Speaker 2:The Bible says in Joshua 1 and 9, it says be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord, your God, will be with you wherever you go. And then in Matthew 20, 26 through 28, it says whoever wants to become great among you, you must first be servant, just as the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve. Now these scriptures, they really lay a foundation, a foundation for leading with courage and humility and with a servant's heart. And that's not just to be done in certain things. You know we tend to be people that can compartmentalize our lives. You know we take certain parts of our lives and we put it into its own little apartment or compartment, and you know they don't connect, they don't have anything to do with each other. But when we're talking about you developing as a Christian leader, it should touch every part of your life, every area, whether it be your professional career, whether it be your business life, your professional career, whether it be your business life, whether it be any other, your family life it should touch every aspect of your life.
Speaker 2:And so what is Christian leadership? Well, christian leadership it involves guiding other people with a heart that's really aligned with God's will for your life. It integrates a lot of spiritual maturity, so that's a big part of it. You know we've got to be spiritually mature if we're going to be effective leaders. You've got to have some very practical business acumen. It prioritizes faith and ethics and service over personal gain. You know, jesus is a great example of how we should be developing ourselves as a Christian leader, especially in the entrepreneurial context.
Speaker 2:So what are some of the key characteristics of a good, strong, spiritual and Christian leader? Well, first of all, faith. Faith is one of the characteristics. They trust God. They trust God for his plan, they trust God for provision. They trust God to give them guidance and direction. They have a complete trust in God. Another is integrity they act honestly, they act justly. And another is servanthood. So they put others first before they put themselves. They have courage. They stand very, very firm when they have to make faith-based decisions, when they have to make decisions kind of like Daniel.
Speaker 2:You know, in the book of Daniel, you know you read about the life of Daniel and he was a person that had, you know, great courage. You know he stood firm in a lot of the decisions that he made, which one got him thrown into a lion's den. One got you know. Then the three Hebrew children got thrown into the fiery furnace for doing the same thing, because they had courage in their leadership. Another is stewardship, because you've been given into your hands certain resources. If you're a business owner especially, you have certain resources. Well, god expects you to be a good steward over those resources. Well, god expects you to be a good steward over those resources. You are responsible for those things, and you can read Luke, chapter 16. You can read that message that Jesus spoke about when he gave the parable of the talents and the responsibility as a steward, and that falls on us too.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, discernment. Discernment is a great leadership characteristic, but as a believer, as a Christian leader, it really helps reflect the Spirit's role in helping you as a believer, and it helps you to distinguish truth from falsehood. You know, john 16, 13 says but when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. So the Holy Spirit will actually lead you and guide you and give you discernment of when to make decisions. I can't tell you, in my life and in my professional career, there've been so many times that in my mind, in my natural thinking, I thought this is the decision that I need to make, and the spirit of the Lord would speak to me and say no, even though this doesn't make sense, this is what you need to do. And then I would step out in faith, believing that I'd heard from the Lord and it would always be proven to be the right decision to have made and that the wrong decision was the one I was about to make. So you need to have that discernment, and so those are some great characteristics. So you need to have that discernment, and so those are some great characteristics.
Speaker 2:So you start first of all by having a self-assessment how do you see these traits in your current leadership role? Do you see them at all? And maybe you take these characteristics that I just mentioned and maybe write them on paper and then rate yourself one through five, five being that you've got that character down, that it's just a part of you, there's no problem. Or one being you need a lot of work on it and you need to try to do better on that particular character characteristic and then maybe identify an area that you need to grow in. Just maybe try one, say, for example, stewardship, and you really get a hold of that for the next 30 days and make that a priority. Put a lot of effort into that.
Speaker 2:Ask yourself have you grown in areas of godly leadership in the last year or six months? Because let me tell you, if you're not growing, you're dying. If you're not growing, you're dying. If you're not learning, you're dying. I'm just telling you that as a godly Christian leader, you should be growing. You should never look back six months from now, a year from now, and look back and say nothing's happened. I've not grown at all. There is a systemic issue with that in and of itself. So you should always be trying to grow. So always look at yourself and then identify that one area that you can work on for 30 days and then again reassess. But you should look at these characteristics in your life every six months and just see where you're at.
Speaker 2:You know Psalms 139 and 23,. You know David. King David said examine me, god, know my mind, test me, know my thoughts. He was self-assessing himself with the help of God there, but that's what he was wanting to do. Now what are some steps that you can do to develop yourself as a leader, as a Christian leader? Well, first you need to deepen your spiritual foundation. All right, so you've got to commit yourself to daily prayer and Bible study.
Speaker 2:I would start out. If you're not doing it now, I'd start out with 15 minutes every day. Just 15 minutes a day to start with. If you're not doing that on a regular basis, just start with 15 minutes. If you're doing 15 minutes, do 30 minutes and just spend some time. How much time is the right amount of time? I can't answer that for you. Over my life it's ranged anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours a day. There's been different times in my life where I've needed more, and then there's been times of my life I've done everything I can to get that 30 minutes in. So it really depends on where you're at.
Speaker 2:I'm not here to judge you on how long that should be, but I would say, start by committing to prayer and Bible study for at least 15 minutes every day, and I would encourage you to do it when you start as you do it and then have some kind of a Bible reading plan. Right, get you a devotional book. Oswald Chambers has a great devotional called my Utmost for His Highest. That's a great devotional there. Utmost for His Highest that's a great devotional. There are business devotionals for business leaders. You can find those on Amazon. You can also use a Bible reading plan that you can go online. It's called you Y-O-U version, you version, and you can find a reading plan. Try to read the Bible through in a whole year. It's not that hard, it's really not.
Speaker 2:So what I would do is I would start by praying and asking God to help you shape your leadership. Like Lord, guide me to lead with your wisdom. Maybe you write this out and you really put some thought into it of what you really need, but that would be something you could do. Step two would be to cultivate servant leadership. We've talked about servant leadership on this podcast before. What is it? How do you become a servant leader? What are some things that you can do. But I think it's important if you're going to develop the Christian leader within you that's in you. I think that you've got to identify a need in your workplace, in your community, in other words, identify something where that you can exercise servant leadership. You know, maybe it's mentoring somebody, maybe it's volunteering locally, you know. Just, you know where you can serve without expecting any kind of reward. I would encourage you to read the book the Servant by James Hunter, great book. But I would really encourage you to maybe plan one act of service this month and then journal its impact on your leadership service this month and then journalist impact on your leadership. And again, this would be something that you are volunteering for and you're trying to do with expecting nothing in return. So you want to cultivate servant leadership.
Speaker 2:Step three would be to build some ethical decision-making skills. You've got to have some ethical skills, or ethical decision skills when it comes to being a Christian leader. You've got to apply really a faith-based decision framework. You need to pray, you got to seek the word of God. You know I've got a Bible that is a businessman's Bible. That's what it's called. It's a businessman's Bible and in that Bible it's got all kinds of topics and if you're struggling, if you've got to make a decision on something, you go into the topics, you try to find that topic and more than likely you're going to find it. And then what it's going to do is it'll tell you the page number to go to and it will give you all the scriptures that pertain to that particular subject. And it's a really great way to find out what the Bible says about a particular situation that you're going through. But that's a Christian businessman's Bible and it's just something that I would encourage you to have, encourage you to invest in, because it can be a great, great help, because then that way you can really understand what the Bible says that you need to do and help you make those decisions. And maybe you want to consult a good Christian mentor, whoever that may be he may be another Christian business leader, he may be your pastor, he may be a friend, somebody you look up to, somebody that's been a mentor to you. And then you want to evaluate those decisions that you've made. When you know you've made a good, godly decision, you can look back at that and say, okay, how did that impact things? How did things work out through that decision, and so I would encourage you to do that.
Speaker 2:There's a great book by Norman Bowie. It's a study, basically, of ethical business cases. It's a book called Business Ethics. I would encourage you to get that book as well. That's a great book, and all of these things I'm sharing with you, all these additional resources, are just there to help you grow, help you to be a part of your growth plan this year. So you want to be able to develop.
Speaker 2:Next is step four. You want to be able to develop courageous leadership. You want to do that. You know you want to take bold steps of faith. You want to address, maybe, some kind of an ethical concern that's going on at work and you need to propose a new initiative. But it's going to have to take faith because it's outside the normal business world what you're going to do. So you've got to be courageous. You can reflect, go to Daniel, as I shared earlier. You can go to Daniel, chapter six, and reflect on his stand that he took, maybe, and get some inspiration from that. So, as you develop that, how do you develop your courageous leadership? I want to get into this just a little bit more. Go a little bit deeper here.
Speaker 2:First, you've got to strengthen your faith foundation. That's got to be rooted in your relationship with God. If you don't have a real close relationship with the Lord, you're missing out. That's why I share with you to spend time every day in prayer and in the Word. And then you've got to act upon his word. You can't just read it and know what it says and then you don't do it. You've got to act upon it. But you've got to seek his guidance. You've got to seek his guidance. You know, when, as I read earlier in Joshua, chapter one, verse nine, says be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord, your God, will be with you wherever you go. That really gives us a powerful reminder of his divine support, and I think you can reflect on this verse. You know, when you build confidence in God's presence during these tough decisions that you make. And another way that you can, you know, really develop courageous leadership is to embrace the biblical examples we've been talking about, like Daniel, like Esther, who risked her life for her people. These are the kinds of stories that really illustrate courage, and I would encourage you to read a lot of those, even in the New Testament and they'll encourage you.
Speaker 2:A third thing you can do is to practice ethical boldness. You know, courage in business often means that you're standing for what's right, even when it's not real popular. You know you've got to develop a real habit of making decisions based on principles like honesty and justice, rather than just making decisions based upon short-term gains. You know, for example, if you're faced with an unethical client demand, you've got to prepare a very respectful but a firm refusal that's grounded, you know, in your values. And then I would practice in delivering that message. I would practice before you just make a phone call, but I would practice that. Maybe practice in front of somebody so that you can do it right. You'll be surprised. People will respect you. They may not like it, but they'll respect you because of it.
Speaker 2:Another thing that you can do is you need to build your resilience through adversity, because courage really grows through overcoming obstacles. You get courage every time you face a setback Maybe it's a financial setback or a workplace conflict and you get through it and you begin to speak Philippians 4.13. I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength, and you begin to persevere. And then you look back at those victories and it just helps you to build that resilience. Another thing to do is to seek accountability and mentorship. So be accountable and then make sure that you act decisively. Act decisively and make sure that you do it with prayer. Always cover it in prayer. You can't listen, you can't pray enough. You can't pray enough. You can pray 20 hours a day, you can't pray enough. But make sure that you bathe things in prayer. All right, so that was step four in developing a courageous leadership.
Speaker 2:But step five is you have to mentor and then multiply. You know, john Maxwell said the people closest to me determine my level of success or failure. The better they are, the better I am. And if I want to go to the highest level, I can do it only with the help of other people. We have to take other people higher and I believe that. I believe that concept. So we need to mentor, but then we need to multiply ourself. Winston Churchill, a great historic figure from World War II obviously he was the head of Great Britain at the time, prime minister he said this he said we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give, and he understood that. So we need to mentor other people and we need to multiply ourselves. And you should never be afraid that this person will go higher than you. You should want them to go to a higher level than you are. That's what mentoring is about.
Speaker 2:All right, step six you need to learn to be led by the Spirit. You've got to be led by the Spirit of God. You've got to learn His voice. You have to know His Word in order to know his voice, because that's how you get to know him is through his word. He'll never contradict his word. If you feel like the Spirit of the Lord is speaking to you but it's a contradiction of something in the Bible, then you didn't hear from the Spirit of the Lord, because he's never going to conflict with his word. He's never going to contradict his word.
Speaker 2:You know, romans 8, 14 says for all those who are led by the spirit, they are the sons of God. You know, in Galatians, chapter five, verses 16 through 23,. It says so. I say live by the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh, for what the flesh wants is opposed to the spirit and what the spirit wants is opposed to the spirit, and what the spirit wants is opposed to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, and so you do not what you want to do. But if you are being led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the actions of the flesh are obvious Sexual immorality, impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of anger, quarrels, conflicts, fractions, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild partying and things like that. I am telling you now, as I have told you in the past, that people who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And that's what this passage is talking about. It's talking about being led by the Spirit and not being led by your flesh.
Speaker 2:You know the times that I've had some of the greatest mistakes of my life. It has been when I made decisions not based upon the Spirit but based upon my own thinking and my own flesh. Those were the times that I really look back and I say, boy, I really blew that particular situation because I didn't wait on God. Maybe I wasn't patient, maybe it was because I thought I knew better. But you know, god really does want to look after us. He really does.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of ethical challenges in business. We get pressure to compromise values like falsifying reports, or to meet quotas or things like that. We've heard a lot about the terminology of they cook the books so they didn't practice ethical decisions and they put false information down in their financial records and it really caused havoc and a lot of times it caused the destruction of the company and the loss of a lot of fortunes that people had based upon that kind of thing. So we're going to be challenged in business to do the right thing. We've got to lead through a lot of financial uncertainty sometimes, you know, sometimes there's economic downturns, sometimes there's budget cuts and these are the things that affect business. You know, the hardest times that I ever had in business in my life was times when an owner would come to me, the CEO, and say Look, this is a tough time. You've got to give me a couple plans and you're going to have to cut back. And I would have to give a plan knowing that there were going to be certain people that were going to have to be terminated to meet that budget. I didn't like it. It was a tough thing to do, but you have to do it in the right way and you have to do it ethically, and the company that I had worked for for so many years of my life allowed me to do that. But those things are going to happen. You're going to be challenged with a lot of workplace conflict from time to time.
Speaker 2:Max Lucado said conflict is inevitable but combat is optional. I kind of chuckle at that, but that can be the case. You don't have to let conflict get out of hand. You can handle it in a godly way. You know. Ronald Reagan said peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. I think that's a great quote and I think that's the way we need to look at it. You know we need to make sure that we do that. You know we're going to be challenged to balance this profit and purpose. Forbes said that the man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder it's a weight, a nothing, a non-man, and I think I understand what he was saying. But I think we have to have purpose. We can't just be about profit. There has to be a balance between profit and purpose. It's just got to be a priority.
Speaker 2:Matthew 6.33 it says but seek ye first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you and given to you as well. So this verse really encourages us to prioritize God's kingdom and his righteousness over the material wealth over. You know promising, you know to have a certain level of wealth. You know God lets us know that the needs will be met in our life when we align with his purpose. You know profit needs to be a tool. Profit needs to be a tool, not an idol.
Speaker 2:You know the 1 Timothy 6 and 10, a lot of people misquote this. It doesn't say the money. The Bible never says money is the root of all evil. 1 Timothy 6 10 says for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith. It's not so much money evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith. It's not so much money, it's about the love of money. In other words, are we putting money and profit above everything else? It warns us against making this profit an ultimate goal. That shouldn't be our ultimate goal. It doesn't serve a greater purpose. We need to be in the center of God's will and we need to understand the purpose that God has for us.
Speaker 2:You know the Bible says Luke 16, 13,. No one person can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money. You know profit is good, there's nothing wrong with it. Only it can't rival devotion to God. It cannot be its rival. And then you have stewardship and generosity.
Speaker 2:You know profit should be managed as a stewardship responsibility, right, and you need to have an ethical pursuit of profit. You know an ethical pursuit of profit. You know Proverbs 11 and 1 says the Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him. So we don't want to go after profit if it's done in an unethical way. We need to look at things more. You know, in an eternal perspective. You know what is it. How does it balance out in eternity? That's really how we have to do it.
Speaker 2:So we've got to overcome some challenges, folks. I mean that's just going to happen. Fear of failure, you know, and if that's the case, if you have a fear of failure, you just got to trust God. You have to trust him and start with small risks. Don't do anything large. Do small risk and build your confidence. And then you've got to balance your faith and your work.
Speaker 2:But Psalms 32 and 8 promises. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. So I'm encouraging you to embrace this journey to develop that Christian leader within you. You got to trust God to shape you for his glory. In your business and endeavors, lead with faith, serve with purpose and impact your workplace for Christ. Lord.
Speaker 2:We thank you for each person who's downloaded and listened to this podcast. Lord, I pray that it's been a source of encouragement and strength. I pray that they would become that godly business leader you want them to be, and not just in their business life and career, but in their personal lives as well. Lord Jesus, I ask you to help them to apply these principles that we've talked about today, to grow as that godly leader so that they can release those seeds of greatness, lord, that you've put in each and every one of them and, lord, I thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, thanks again for being a part of Christian Business Concepts family and for making us a part of your journey to find true godly success. Well, that's all the time we have for today. So remember Jesus is Lord and he wants you blessed.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning into this week's Christian Business Concepts podcast. Go to christianbusinessconceptscom for more information and resources. Be sure to check out other podcasts that will help you take your business and your personal life to a whole new level of success.