What does it mean for a Christian to own and manage a business? What does a Christian organization look like? Should it look differently than any other business?

When I Googled these questions I came up with unhelpful answers. Something to the effect of: Christian businesses should have integrity, care about their people, and strive for excellence. These types of answers are lousy because no business that strives to be dishonest, hates their employees, and does sub-standard work can expect to stay in business. In short, the answer isn’t actually addressing the question; rather, it just restates that a “Christian” business should look the same as every other business.

Here’s a radical idea. The only distinguishing feature of a Christian-run business should be servant leadership.

Like most clichés and catch phrases, ‘servant leadership’ is utterly devoid of meaning. We say it without giving thought to what it actually means, and mean something completely different when we use it. So what is it?

Jesus showed us servant leadership, “being in very nature God, [he] did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.” Think about that and consider the power and status a CEO wields. Jesus had every right to be powerful and important and chose to be our equal. That is servant leadership. It’s “loving your neighbor as yourself” even at work.

In a work setting, servant leadership is not giving yourself crazy awesome perks/benefits and pay because “it’s good to be the king” (thank you Mel Brooks) or because you work harder than everyone else or because you make the decisions. It’s deliberately not using your status to your advantage. Servant leadership is not asking of your people something you wouldn’t do yourself. It’s giving your subordinates the credit when all goes well and accepting the blame when it goes wrong. It’s believing that you don’t have all the best ideas, and being humble enough to admit a mistake.

Servant leadership is hard because it is radically counter to our culture. Isn’t the whole point of scrambling to the top to get to a place where you can do whatever you want and answer only to yourself? And boy does it feel nice to be pampered. Power really is intoxicating. But you can wean yourself off of that power and guard yourself against it with daily practice. Here are a couple of ideas, especially for those higher up the corporate ladder:

–get your own coffee, copies, and anything else you need.

–give your parking space to your janitor (or someone else who does vitally important but generally unrecognized work).

–flatten your pay scale. The government is a good example of a very flat but reasonable pay scale. OPM Pay Scales

–remind yourself that “your” people are made in God’s image. They are not your servants or resources, they are your equals, and their hopes and dreams are every bit as important as yours.