Letters to Lions
10 Essential Questions to Starting Your Leadership Journey
Leadership is not first about influence over others. It is about mastery of self.
Before you lead a team, a ministry, a room, a vision, a family, you must learn to lead you. Because the way you lead your private life will shape the way you lead your public life. There is a direct link between self leadership and healthy leadership.
If we cannot lead ourselves, it becomes very difficult to lead others well.
So today, leader, we go to the centre.
A Leader’s Map of Leadership
Before we get to the questions, take a breath and define leadership in your own words.
Discuss: How would you define leadership?
Now picture leadership as 360 degrees:
Upward leadership, those above you
Sideways leadership, those alongside you
Downward leadership, those entrusted to you
Which aspect do we focus on most?
Usually, leading the people entrusted to us. But if you want to lead long term and lead well, you must strengthen every direction, starting with the middle.
The most essential leadership to develop is self leadership.
You need to take radical responsibility for yourself.
You need intentional growth.
One of the marks of a great leader is the ability to lead themselves.
Leading yourself may be the biggest challenge in your leadership journey, and often the most overlooked.
Lead your head, heart, hands, and spirit.
And remember this:
When the leader gets better, everyone gets better.
The Ten Questions
A Self Leadership Reading Guide
1) Clarify the Call
Is your assignment anchored?
Dear leader,
Before you ask what you should do, ask who God has called you to be.
We believe wholeheartedly that every Christian has a calling. If you bear the name of Jesus and the Spirit of God lives in you, there is a God given call on your life. Calling is not a job title. It is a divine assignment. Like a phone ringing, the question is, will you choose to answer it? And when you surrender your life to God and make yourself fully available, He can use you in ways you could never engineer on your own.
The first steps towards your calling might sound like:
To pursue intimacy with God
To see your family thrive
To build the Church
To bring the Gospel into places that feel forgotten
To carry a burden for a generation, a city, a community, a mission
I wish more Christians would believe bigger, dream larger, advance stronger, and ultimately have divine ambition. If only a percentage of the world follows Jesus, how much smaller is the percentage of leaders? Therefore, how much more is God going to ask of you in order to make an impact in this world?
Paul said it like this:
“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24)
For Paul there was no higher priority than God’s call. And when you become sure of your calling, something happens. Your life gains focus. Your confidence grows. Your passion deepens. Your days carry meaning.
You may not know the full picture. That is okay. But it is your responsibility to keep your calling sure.
How calling often reveals itself
God gives gifts to match the call, so there are signs:
Passion, what stirs you
Gifting, what flows through you
Conviction, what you cannot ignore
God often calls in themes, patterns of burden, passion, and opportunity.
Reflection Prompt
What do you feel deeply passionate or burdened about?
What themes have repeated in your life?
Practice
Pursue God, and He will reveal the next step. You do not need the whole map, just the next move.
2) Sharpen the Sightline
Is your vision vivid?
Dear leader,
Calling is the big picture of your life. Vision is the part of that picture God is asking you to paint right now.
Leadership means leading people into a future. But how can you lead into a future you cannot see?
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18 KJV)
Vision gives focus, staying power, drive, confidence, and direction when life gets loud. Without vision we risk living mundane, reactive, and unfruitful lives.
Your vision may be a week vision, a seasonal vision, a year vision, or a life vision. But you must be able to name it.
Exercise
Prayerfully craft a simple vision statement for this year.
Example: “My vision this year is to live each day in a way that brings someone closer to Jesus.”
Reflection Prompt
What is God asking you to build, become, or bring?
What is your why for this season?
3) Stoke the Fire
Is your passion protected?
Dear leader,
Fire does not stay hot by accident.
It is nobody else’s responsibility to keep your passion alive. Not your leader, not your small group, not the worship team. You must guard your fire.
“Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” (Romans 12:11)
A fire needs three things: oxygen, fuel, and heat.
So ask yourself, what are your oxygen, fuel, and heat?
There are 3 components needed to start a fire:
Oxygen
Fuel
Heat
The fuel is you. God needs something to burn. The oxygen is the Holy Spirit, the breath of God. The heat is the environment of faith and expectancy that we create in order for something to burn.
If you remove one of these, you will not have a fire.
People thrive when they live out God given passions. If you are not passionate about something, it is hard to invest, commit, or endure.
And I will say it bluntly. If you are not fired up about what you are doing in church or life, do something about it.
Knock. Ask. Push doors. Seek opportunity. Leaders do not grow by watching. They grow by doing.
Reflection Prompt
What sets you on fire in God’s Kingdom?
What keeps your passion red hot?
Are you feeding your fire or letting it fade?
Practice
List 3 practical ways you will fuel your passion this month.
4) Steward the Strength
Are your gifts growing?
Dear leader,
If you cannot name your top spiritual gifts faster than your email address, wake up.
Leadership demands that you know what God has placed in you and that you steward it intentionally.
Read Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, take a spiritual gifts test, and begin nurturing the gifts He has placed inside of you.
Jesus makes this painfully clear in Matthew 25:14 to 30, the parable of the talents. God entrusts. God expects growth. And God holds leaders accountable.
Gifts do not grow because you hope they do. They grow because you made room for them to.
How to develop your gifts
Find spaces to exercise them
Learn from leaders who carry them strongly
Hunt opportunities to practise
Stretch beyond comfort, growth lives there
Reflection Prompt
What are your gifts?
Are you practising them or parking them?
Practice
Identify 1 gift you will intentionally develop over the next 30 days, and choose 1 environment where you will practise it.
5) Guard the Core
Is your character consistent?
Dear leader,
Leadership requires integrity. People do not follow moral inconsistency for long, and God does not bless compromise.
Every time you compromise character, you compromise leadership.
Character is not only about big sins. It is about the daily erosion:
Saying you will do something and not doing it
Being unreliable
Shifting moods and motives
Cutting corners
Becoming one thing on stage and another in secret
Charisma can take you places. Character will keep you there.
Character is formed in secret, not on stage.
Scripture warns about idleness (2 Thessalonians 3:6 to 15). Idleness is not just inactivity. It is an inner attitude that says, “There is nothing worth doing.”
Idleness is laziness and indolence, avoiding sacrifice for the good of others.
What you do with your time reveals what you worship.
Reflection Prompt
Where is your character leaking?
What pattern is eroding trust?
Practice
Check yourself honestly
Ask trusted leaders to name blind spots
Choose one character discipline to strengthen, faithfulness, diligence, punctuality, integrity, or kindness
6) Subdue the Ego
Is pride under authority?
Dear leader,
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5)
As leaders, we choose. Do we want opposition from God, or grace?
Pride makes leadership feel like sailing against the wind. Humility positions you for the favour of God.
Here is a brutal test. Ask people around you. If you cannot ask, that may already be your answer.
Pride shows up like this:
Unwillingness to learn from anyone
Defensiveness
Needing the last word
My way or the highway
The question is not do you have pride. The question is is your pride subdued.
Healthy humility shifts from “look what I made” to “look what I got to be a part of.”
Fruitfulness expands when you learn the power of being under authority.
Reflection Prompt
Where do you resist correction?
Where do you need to submit instead of strive?
Practice
Ask one person: “Do you ever see pride in me?”
Then listen without defending.
7) Face the Fear
Is courage governing your choices?
Dear leader,
Fear immobilises leaders. It neutralises obedience. It sabotages calling.
So often the reason we do not step out is simple. We are afraid.
But leadership demands courage. God’s call often feels crazy, unusual, and unreasonable.
You do not rise to the level of your dreams. You fall to the level of your courage.
“The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)
Reflection Prompt
Where has fear stolen opportunity from you?
Do you live in risk or comfort?
Practice
Name one courageous step you have been avoiding.
Then take it, despite the shaking.
8) Heal the Hidden
Are inner issues undermining your leadership?
Dear leader,
Unresolved wounds always leak. Every leader carries a past, and if you ignore what is going on inside, it will eventually impact your future, your relationships, and your leadership health.
And here is the hard truth. You are responsible for processing and healing your inner life.
Ask yourself this: What is in charge of my life, my feelings or my values?
Feelings change. Values do not.
Examples:
Feeling: tired, Value: devotion
Feeling: defensive, Value: humility
Feeling: guilty, Value: grace and purity
Feeling: indifferent, Value: love and faithfulness
Reflection Prompt
What mindset, sin pattern, or wound is shaping your reactions?
What values do you want to build on?
Practice
Write 5 values you want to lead your life. Then build habits that prove them.
9) Regulate the Rhythm
Is your pace sustainable?
Dear leader,
Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
God cares about your pace.
If your pace is out of control, it will eventually damage your emotional health, your spiritual life, your body, your family and friendships, and your effectiveness.
And this part matters. A pace problem is not anyone else’s fault. It is yours.
If you are at capacity, one of two things must happen.
A) Increase capacity
Some people do not have a stress issue. They have a capacity issue. Capacity grows through better perspective, better relationship with your diary, discipline, training, and maturity.
B) Reduce load
If stress becomes distress, it becomes dangerous. Do not allow the pace of doing God’s work to destroy the work of God in you.
Task
Plan your week. Every minute. It will expose what you value and where your life is leaking.
Reflection Prompt
Is my pace faith filled or fear driven?
What needs to drop, reorganise, or change?
10) More Means Multiply
Is my stewardship evident?
How are you stewarding what God has already placed in your hands?
Dear leader,
A simple litmus test for whether God can trust us with more is whether we are stewarding what He has already given.
Jesus is clear in Matthew 25. The master rewards multiplication, not preservation. In the Kingdom, growth is not an accident. Increase is not entitlement. More is often released when what is already in our hands is being treated with honour, faith, and intention.
So here is a question that will expose your posture fast.
Is the area you are responsible for, the people you lead, or the local church you attend something you merely use, or something you are helping build?
Using asks, “What do I get?”
Building asks, “What can I give?”
Using watches for gaps and critiques.
Building sees gaps and carries responsibility.
This is not about striving. It is about stewardship. Leaders who take initiative, invest intentionally, and make a plan to multiply what they have been entrusted with become leaders God can trust with bigger things.
You do not need a bigger platform to begin building. You need a stronger posture. Start where you are. With what you have. With what is in your hands today.
Because the path to more often begins with this quiet decision:
I will not bury what God gave me.
Reflection Prompt
Where am I currently consuming more than I am contributing?
What has God placed in my hands that I have been treating casually, passively, or privately?
Practice
Choose one area God has already entrusted to you, a person, a role, a ministry space, a need in your church, and take one intentional step this week to build and multiply.
Write a simple plan with three actions: what you will start, what you will strengthen, and what you will stop.
Final Charge
A leader must learn to lead north, south, east, and west. But it does not matter how many directions you manage if you are weak in the middle.
Some people complain they are not where they want to be because no one is investing in them. But leader, your first responsibility is to self feed, self develop, and prioritise your own spiritual maturity.
Soon, read this again.
Lay before God your calling, your vision, your passion, your gifts, your character, your pride, your fears, your inner life, your pace, and your love.
Let God reveal the truth. Then take whatever steps you need to become strong in the most important aspect of leadership.
Self leadership.
The Ten Questions Quick Recap
Clarify the Call, is my assignment anchored?
Sharpen the Sightline, is my vision vivid?
Stoke the Fire, is my passion protected?
Steward the Strength, are my gifts growing?
Guard the Core, is my character consistent?
Subdue the Ego, is pride under authority?
Face the Fear, is courage governing your choices?
Heal the Hidden, are inner issues undermining your leadership?
Regulate the Rhythm, is my pace sustainable?
More means multiply, is my stewardship evident?