The “Heart.” Who can understand it? It’s the size of a fist and weighs around 10 ounces. It beats about 100,000 times a day circulating blood throughout the body. It’s a muscle like any other organ of the body. It does what it is designed to do; simply filters blood throughout our body.
We use words like heartbreak, heartthrob, heart-felt, weak or kind-hearted or heartache tell us that we believe the heart is more than a muscle. But we do know that neglecting the heart can result in conditions such as congestive heart failure, diabetes, high blood pressure, arrhythmia, and heat attack. We know a lot about the heart; yet so much remains a mystery. According to the Cleveland Clinic (2023):
“Heart disease is the greatest single threat to your
health and the leading cause of death globally.”
If, as experts suggest, heart disease is the single leading threat to our physical health; then I believe it’s also the leading threat to our effectiveness as leaders and our spiritual health. Matthew 15:19 tells us:
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”
There is an undeniable link between the heart and mind. The medical community, especially neuroscientists and psychologists have long believed that our emotions are not formed in our hearts but in our minds. In Emotional Rescue: The Heart-Brain Connection (NIH, 2019), we are told there is “a subconscious conversation that is taking place inside us is one of the most vital communications we will ever find ourselves engaged in. It’s the dialogue of emotion-based signals between our hearts and our brains, also known as the heart-brain connection.”
If emotions like love, affection, desire, and belonging are formed in the brain, so are sins like pride, arrogance, deceit, lust and greed. Look at these later qualities and characteristics and for good measure, throw in lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and slothfulness and you’ve got the “seven deadly sins.” I’d bet most of us can think of at least one famous (or infamous) leader whose downfall was one or more of these deadly sins. It is because of this good-evil paradox that Proverbs 4:23 tells us:
“Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.”
Clarence L. Haynes Jr., author of The Pursuit of Purpose, states that “when the Bible speaks about the heart it is really referring to the mind, will, and emotions.” This understanding is fundamental to our lives as Christians, and leaders, and the reason we emphasize aligning our heart, head, hands and habits. In case you’re wondering, it isn’t a coincidence that the alignment of the heart, head, hands and habits occurs in this sequence.
It turns out that the sequence aligns with the number of times the words are used in the Bible. The heart is mentioned more than 1,000 times, the mind more than 762, the hands more than 460 and habits more than 100. It is the sequence, in order of priority, that Jesus spoke to when commanding us to love, God and each other, with all our heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37-40).
Leading like Jesus doesn’t start with changing others; it starts with changing ourselves. Leading like Jesus begins with having a heart like Jesus. It doesn’t start with leadership, but service (Matthew 20:25-28):
“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Servant leadership is founded on the love of others, a desire to see to their well-being above our self-serving interests. In Time to Check Your Motives, Lauren Miller reminds us:
“Love must be sincere. How do you know when your love is insincere? Usually when you have false motives. When you are seeking the approval of man over the approval of God (Galatians 1:10) you can easily find yourself hijacked by insincere motives. A mask that looks like love is used to accomplish what flows from selfishness.
Change, like this, requires commitment and, more importantly, humility. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can happen; one step at a time. It begins with realizing, as former US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said:
“Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.”
Challenge: Read Time to Check Your Motives. Identify an area you’d like to change or increase your effectiveness (i.e., leadership, relationships, etc.) and explore your motives for this change. Next month we’ll look at moving from a desire to change to an action for change. I hope you’ll continue the journey.
Gilbert Camacho serves as President, Organizational Leadership Solutions, a management consulting firm, based in Melbourne, Florida. Gilbert is a certified Lead Like Jesus Facilitator with extensive leadership experience in the private, public and non-profit sectors. He has been a contributing author to the Lead Like Jesus Blog for almost 3 years writing monthly on such issues as servant leadership, accountability, trust and integrity. Gilbert s a sought-after Speaker, Trainer, and Executive Coach. Gilbert is a Registered Shared Neutral (Mediator) with the State Supreme Court of Georgia. He recently retired an Associate Director for the Human Resources Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Gilbert has been married to his best friend, Annie, for almost 40 years. Together they have raised two beautiful daughters, Holley and Logan.
