A guest post by our Cornerstone campus pastor Ja Cook. Awesome! Love this dude!

There are a lot of great thoughts out there about what it takes to be a great leader. What I have found to be the most important truth of leadership is that you cannot lead someone you cannot love. You may be able to throw your weight around if you have a level of authority over someone…or, you may be able to manipulate someone for a time…but, in the end, people will follow someone who they know loves them.

So as leaders, remember:

• You cannot lead who you cannot love
• You cannot love who you cannot give respect and  honor to
• You cannot give respect and honor to someone you do not know
• You cannot know someone unless you invest time with them.
• You cannot invest time with someone until you can accept them for who they are
• You cannot accept someone for who they are until you can look past your differences
• You cannot look past your differences until you view people through God’s eyes
• You cannot view people with God’s eyes without spending intimate time with God
• You will not spend intimate time with God until you love Him.

So it starts and ends with…LOVE.