14 Apr Leaders Sacrifice
The Law of Sacrifice and Leaders Sacrifice
Christopher Hart with Transforming Lives Coaching and Consulting, and for those that do not know me I’m a coach, consultant and educator in the field of organizational and leadership development as well as the psychology of success through peak performance.
And so today we’re talking about …today’s topic is about the Law of Sacrifice and leaders sacrifice, and I believe it’s a fitting topic to talk about today on Good Friday as it represents really what Good Friday is all about. And so for those that follow the Christian religion, Good Friday is about the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross for His people. And so we’re going to kind of dig into that today and we’re going to look at how that parallels some great learning opportunities for us as leaders in the way of what does sacrifice mean, how does it apply to us and then how can we apply it in our everyday lives. So for those that haven’t tuned in before or maybe have only tuned in once or twice this series is about how do we build strong leaders in the realms of our families, our organizations, as well as businesses, and really any other environment that we find ourselves to be leaders in. So whether you’re leading yourself, you’re leading other people, you’re leading businesses, or you’re leading your family, I want you to listen to these applications of leadership through this video series as well as the others that we’ve done and just let them talk to you from different perspective, ones that you’re currently involved in leadership, like I said, whether it’s yourself, business, an organization, et cetera, these leadership principles parallel in all the various different areas of our lives.
So Law of Sacrifice, let’s dig into this.
One of the things we like to do is truly understand the meanings of words before we actually try to understand how they apply to us and then how we apply them in our everyday leadership journey. So when we look at the word ‘sacrifice,’ what exactly is sacrifice? Well when we look at the very definitions of it, first it’s rooted from the Latin word which is sacrificius, and it’s actually a compound word or two compound words …a compound word from two words where it’s sacre or sacer, S-A-C-E-R, and facio, and sacer is defined in the Latin language as sacred, and facio is do or make; so when you talk about sacrificius or sacrifacio, it’s defined as ‘to make sacred.’
Now sacred is kind of an interesting word in the way that many people understand it to be holy. And so what I want to first preface is that what we’re going to learn today about the Law of Sacrifice and how it applies in our everyday leadership journey is it’s not to make us feel holy, it’s not to make us be seen as holy in the eyes of other people whereby it’s the further definitions of sacer or sacred is to do or make more. So what I want you to understand about the definition of sacrifice is one in the way of sacrifice is designed or defined as to do or make more.
Ultimately we want to do more as leaders, we want to make more happen in our organization, in our people’s lives, and ultimately I believe each leader wants to be seen as more in the eyes of their people. So let’s kind of dig into this because John Maxwell has his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership book, which is a great book if you haven’t read it and you’re a leader on a leadership journey, I highly recommend reading that book. And one of his laws is the Law of Sacrifice whereby he says “leaders give up to go up.” And I believe sacrifice from a psychological perspective is a real difficult concept for many people because just the whole fact of giving up, like the brain is not wired to lose things and embrace it, it’s actually wired that if you lose something, if you give something up it’s actually designed to go find it, that is how your brain is wired.
And so when you look at people that are on a weight-loss journey, the reason why they gain that weight back is because they tell themselves, “I want to lose 10/15/25 pounds, whatever the number is, and the brain goes, “Okay,” so you go and do exercises, diet routine et cetera, and you tell people “Oh I’ve lost the weight,” and the brain’s going, “I’ve got to find it… I’ve got to find it.” Part of your identity, it’s just how the brain is wired.
So to understand the Law of Sacrifice just from a psychological perspective is one where the brain is not naturally wired for you to give things up or to lose things per se, so we have to understand that when we look at this Law of Sacrifice to give up to go up it’s more of a to do more for our people, sacrifice is doing more, not really giving up. So let’s look at this Law of Sacrifice that we do more for our people in order to make more in, order to be seen as more, to accomplish more. And if you look at it from the perspective, a biblical perspective in the life of Jesus, the Bible tells us Jesus came to this earth as a representative of God Himself, as the Son of God, as the Messiah, to save His people because they couldn’t save themselves so God sent His one and only Begotten Son to live a life free of sin, to be a model for us. Ultimately was captured, brutally beaten, nailed to a cross. And His life was one of sacrifice, His whole journey, when He went into His mission, His life was one of sacrifice. He didn’t give things up, He did more for people, He reached out more, He served more, He gave of Himself more in order to make more, to be seen as more.
And ultimately yes, His life ended in a brutal death, but if you understand the Christian religion that’s the beginning, So sacrifice isn’t about giving up and finality, sacrifice is about doing more to gain more, because if you understand the Christian religion and the life of Jesus what happened today is only the beginning of what happens three days from now on Sunday where Jesus rises from the dead, defeats sin, defeats death and becomes victorious. So I believe in the Law of Sacrifice, when we quote/unquote “give up to go up,” it’s not an end, we’re doing more to initiate a greater potential that we have for other people as well as for ourselves.
And so there are some understandings about the Law of Sacrifice and what sacrifice actually does for us. One of the things I believe that as leaders when you sacrifice you learn more about yourself, if you’re willing to do more, if you’re willing to go further and do things that other people are not willing to do as a servant leader to serve your people so that you possess the ability to allow your people to accomplish that which they desire to accomplish, in the journey of following you, when you serve them and you do more for them you’re going to learn about yourself, and really what it’s about it’s about learning about your heart, how far are you willing to go for your people?
You see Jesus was willing to give it all up. He didn’t have any earthly possessions. He walked everywhere so that He can deliver a message that His Father wanted Him to deliver. Even to the point that at the final supper Jesus washed the feet of His own disciples. And back then if you understood that like if you’re going to be seen as this king of the people the kings always had their feet washed by the people, and yet Jesus was such a servant leader that He washed the feet of His own disciples, and they couldn’t even comprehend that, it is literally it blew their mind. So what I think happens in that sacrifice is we learn about ourselves, we learn about how far are we willing to go for our people.
You see I see a lot of times in leaders what tends to happen is they implement a Law of Sacrifice but it’s more about an elitist sacrifice as opposed to a servant leadership sacrifice whereby they’re expecting their people to sacrifice for them, for the greater good of them or the greater good of the organization and its further accomplishments, and that’s the wrong perspective of sacrifice. The servant leadership sacrifice is what are we willing to do for our people? Are we willing to take a knee…are you as a leader willing to take a knee and proverbially wash the feet of your people? Serve your people? Go further than any leader is willing to go for their people in order to do more? To be seen as more? Because here’s what I believe happens more so than we learn about ourselves and what we’re really willing to do as a leader is we learn about our people, how do our people receive our servanthood?
I believe we live in a very selfish society today, selfish world whereby people will step on you to go up; people will run you over because they’re late for their next meeting, and when they do run you over they don’t even care. And so when you serve them I think what it does too is it reveals the hearts of your people. See sacrifice is about you and it’s about your people, it’s about your heart and their mind; your mind, their heart. You’re going to learn a lot about yourself and you’re going to learn a lot about your people because I also believe that in society today people are being conditioned to just expect. Have these expectations of “Give me, give me, give me.” I think the millennial generation is really struggling with that today and I think society has a whole is struggling with that. Like go on television everybody… turn the news on and it’s like “Oh if you didn’t give this to me, woe is me.”
So when you serve someone I think it’s going to reveal their mind and their heart and you’re going to know about your people. Are your people just expecting things of you? Do they expect you to wash their feet or do they appreciate you? Do they see you more as a leader? Are they bought into you more because you’re willing to be less so that they can be greater? And I believe when you do that and it reveals the heart and mind of your people you’re going to know what your organization looks like.
Do you have people bought into you as a leader or are they just following you because they expect things of you because you are that servant leader? So I think it’s going to reveal the hearts and minds of your people which is going to determine the trajectory of your organization. Is it just going to go like this? Or is it going to go like this? Or quite frankly it’s going to go like that? Because we grow our organizations on people and our cultures. If you build a great culture of serving leadership where people appreciate and value that, I promise you the trajectory of your business is going to increase. But if you’re building a business whereby your Law of Sacrifice is asking your people to sacrifice for you, you’ll have constant turnover. And if people don’t appreciate your leadership eventually I think…or your sacrifice in leadership… I think eventually what’s going to happen is it’s going to harden your heart. And one thing I’ve learned about life in my own personal journey with leadership in life is that when your heart is hardened it prevents you from appreciating the blessings that are bestowed on you in your business and in your life.
So when we look at this Law of Sacrifice it’s not about giving up.
It’s about doing more; it’s about willing to embrace our heart for our people and their success knowing that if I give up of myself and give in to more for our people they can do more, they can make more, they can achieve more; and in turn if those are the right people then I as well will be elevated. You see when Jesus gave up His life for His people He was elevated into the Kingdom of God. He was viewed as the Messiah that was willing to sacrifice for His people and then three days later He defeated death and He rose from the grave and came back to earth and presented Himself to His disciples to show them who He was as their leader.
You see I believe and I think the Bible even accounts this that the disciples looked at Jesus in a much greater light when He was willing to take the beatings, the sacrifice for them and for His people. And ultimately what I believe sacrifice does for us is it empowers our people. And that’s what leadership is about inspiration and empowerment. We’ve talked about this many times in previous videos where the definition of empowerment is to give, it’s a gift, to give our people the ability and authority, and I believe when we sacrifice for them we give them the ability, we empower them by giving them the ability to sacrifice for themselves because every great achievement has sacrifice in it. And we also give them the authority to sacrifice, and we give them a role model of what sacrifice looks like, just like Jesus has done for so many in their personal journeys of being Christians and following Him, if that’s what your belief system is.
You see Level One leadership is be a great follower. I believe that you have to be a great follower of something or someone great. For me that is Jesus, and Jesus is that role model of sacrifice for me as a leader whereby I understand that His sacrifice, what it led for Him can be the same model that I use in my own leadership journey with myself, my family, and those that I lead, whether it’s directly within my business or for you people that I get to impact, influence and inspire and empower on a daily basis.
And then Level Two leadership that part of our model is lead by self. You see sacrificing is about leading yourself, it’s about knowing more about you so that you can elevate into Level Three which is lead another. And when you establish those foundations for being a great follower, leading yourself through sacrifice, then you can ultimately have the conversations and inspire and empower others to understand what sacrifice is going to look like for them based off of their goals; and they’re going to be willing to do it. If they’re the right people with the right hearts and the right mind they’re going to be willing to do it because they see you do it and they see the ultimate outcome that comes from it. So the end of the day the Law of Sacrifice I believe creates this amazing opportunity for us as leaders to… for us to do more to make more, to empower others to do more, to empower others to make more. So collectively we interdependently, we’re together, not I can achieve, you can achieve, we’re going to be on this journey of doing whatever the hell we want to do, but together we elevate, we cause the tide to raise us up through our people through our sacrifice.
So hopefully this topic has brought some value to your life and your business and your leadership journey. If you want to find out more, like I said, visit our YouTube channel, like the video, subscribe, share it with people. This is not about us, this is not about our ego, this is about changing the world through creating better and stronger leaders. Remember one thing, God loves you, so do I, lead strong. Have a great day and go out and empower others. Thanks for joining me.
Have a great day.
About the author:
Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!
To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Chris@TransformingLivesCoaching.com
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