Lead? Yes. Lead without serving? Never.

I frequently highlight "service" as the core, first principal in servant leadership. Service is where it starts, ends, and tracks down the middle. Serving others is the "why" in "why we lead."

But there are two sides to every coin, and the flip side of "serving" is "leading."

Let me be perfectly clear. Serving without leadership is noble. Serving with the intent only to serve another person is an inspiring position and honorable in God's eyes. Deliberately placing the importance of oneself below that of another or others is the call of every Christian everywhere, in all circumstances. After all, isn't that the "Golden Rule?"

Yet, while service is noble without the call to lead, leadership is wasted without service. I'll say that a different way so that my words are unmistakable. Leading without the moral compass of a servant's heart is selfish and self serving.

Servant Leadership can be defined as "placing the needs and desires of others ahead of our own while maximizing the efforts of a social group through direction or guidance that achieves a goal." (multiple sources aggregated)

Servant Leader, the purpose of leadership is to lead others to achieve a goal.

One other point, quickly. Leadership is not a state of being, like Matriarch (oldest woman in a family unit) or Caucasian (white-skinned of European origin). You don't "arrive at leadership" and then sit there. You are not King of the Hill simply because you occupy the hill, you become King because you defeated all other challengers, and you remain King because you actively defend the mountain.

Leadership requires perpetual motion towards a goal.

Leadership requires action, and servant leaders act at the best interest of others.

Leaders don't always make the right choices. They don't always make the best choices. But servant leaders make the choices that advance others. If the choice is easy but the result sets others backward, it's the wrong choice. Servant leaders make choices that better others and advance the group toward a common goal.

In Afghanistan, we had a choice. We could have stayed and continued spending American dollars and risking American lives for no discernible, tangible benefit to America. Staying in Afghanistan is the choice of service without leadership - maintaining the status quo without advancing the people we serve toward a goal of self governance.

President Biden, following the choice of his predecessor President Trump, chose to leave. In doing so he made a choice not to serve without leading, but to lead without service. And to be clear, leadership is wasted without service as a foundation.

Servant leadership in Afghanistan looks nothing like nation building, advancing democracy, or destroying the Taliban.

Servant leadership in Afghanistan listens first to what Afghans are saying and hears their needs without substituting American ideas. Servant leadership in Afghanistan puts the needs of Afghans above the desires to build a legacy or even build a regional partner. Servant leadership in Afghanistan looks nothing like the chaos surrounding Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA:KBL), the women in Afghanistan who are being beaten and bloodied for exercising basic human freedoms, or the tens of thousands of American citizens and Afghan allies deserted as the last C-17 escaped.

We have served Afghanistan for two decades. It is time to lead Afghanistan by leaving Afghanistan.

But true servant leadership leaves Afghanistan a better nation than the one we occupied 20 years ago. Afghanistan needs our leadership, but it needs our service first.

Lead now, but lead with a servant's heart.

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:5-6, NIV)

(Photo: Getty)