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Content note: This episode includes discussion of domestic abuse. Most leaders believe the “real me” is the one with good intentions: the person who wants to do better and has promised never to do it again. But our words and actions show what’s really going on inside, more reliably than our intentions do. In this episode, I share one of the hardest conversations I’ve had in decades of supervising leaders. I sat across from a man whose staff had accused him of abuse, and he kept pleading that his behavior didn’t reflect the real him. He never faced the anger and need for control that drove him. I have never seen anyone grow into servant leadership without being willing to look honestly, and with hope, at what’s going on inside. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, name one thing in your inner world that works against your better intentions. Then ask yourself what the first step might be toward defeating it. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Servant leadership isn’t something we master once and then move on from. Most of us take two steps forward and one step back. We ask for forgiveness, work on our hearts, and try again. That can feel discouraging, as if we should be further along by now. But the stumbling is part of the path. It doesn’t mean we’ve failed. In this episode, I share what decades of trying to lead like Jesus have taught me. God knows about work, workplaces and leadership. He created, and Jesus worked too. With a few women and a dozen men, Jesus started a movement that changed the world and modeled a new way to lead. Servant leadership isn’t a fad. It’s as old as God’s own goodness. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, name the one thing in your inner life you’d most like God to transform, so that your leadership would be transformed too. Then ask God for the grace and power to change it. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Most of us can name a boss who made work miserable. They showed up late and blamed everyone else. They handed out tasks with no context or help. They pulled rank instead of pitching in. Leaders like that don’t just make bad decisions. They teach the people under them to stop trusting leaders at all. In this episode, as we continue our look at servant leadership, I share my son’s experience in his first jobs and ask you to imagine something different, in the words of Paul in Philippians 2: Leaders who do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in humility value others above themselves. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, commit to being the kind of leader who gets the right things done the right way, serving your way into excellence for your team, your mission, or however you measure success. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Few leaders set out to be mean. But a goal that seems vital, like hitting the number, saving the organization or getting the project over the line, can quietly justify almost anything. “Whatever it takes” sounds like commitment until it starts to include harming people. When someone opens with “This isn’t personal,” we all know the next thing they say will be deeply personal. In this episode, I look at where meanness grows. Jesus said a bad tree can’t bear good fruit, and the meanness we fear grows from anger and contempt that leak out under pressure. I name three things a godly leader must not do: win at all costs, manipulate, or grab for power. Jesus didn’t need to grab. He lived in a God-bathed reality, secure in God’s totally competent love. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, ground yourself in a God-bathed reality that settles and secures you, so that you don’t feel compelled to grab, but free to give. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Power-driven leadership wears everyone out. The leader is always grabbing for more control and more leverage, and the team has to live with the fallout. Servant leadership isn’t weak or passive, and it doesn’t turn a leader into a doormat. It still works to shape the future of an organization. It just starts from a different assumption: I’m here to serve first. In this episode, I continue our look at Jesus’ words “not so with you” in John 13. Jesus knew the Father had put him in charge of everything. He knew he had come from God and was going back to God. So he put on an apron and washed his disciples’ feet. When we’re secure in where we come from and where we’re going, we don’t need to grab for power. We’re free to serve. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, take Jesus’ words in Luke 12 to heart: “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.” Your leadership concerns can rest there. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Many leaders quietly assume they have to choose between being good and getting results. When the pressure is on, it can feel as if the only way to win is to push people around and demand our own way. Jesus disagrees. In the way of Jesus, leadership can be both ethical and effective. We don’t have to sell our souls to pursue results. In this episode, I look at the moment the disciples argued over who would sit at Jesus’ right hand, and his reply: The rulers of this world lord it over people, but “not so with you.” Following the self-emptying Jesus of Philippians 2 means laying down arrogance, ambition and the need to control. Then, after we’ve done our best work, it means leaving the outcomes with God. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, check in with Jesus about where you are on the journey to “not so with you”: toward servant leadership, and toward results rooted in integrity. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

No leader wakes up planning to be a jerk at work. But under enough pressure—like a looming deadline, a blown budget or a hard conversation with our own boss—our worst selves come out. Over time, the team stops talking to us. Leaders who ask, “Why am I the last person to know anything around here?” usually don’t like the answer. They’ve become someone no one wants to talk to. In this episode, I begin a conversation about servant leadership. I look at what bitterness toward leaders costs: disengaged teams, broken trust, and frustration people carry home through the front door. I also share Max De Pree’s conviction that organizations need a moral purpose. Servant leadership, modeled by Jesus, is that moral compass. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, invite Jesus to be your teacher and mentor in the practice of leadership. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

The gifts of the Spirit make many leaders nervous. They seem controversial, and they get tied to strange behavior and hype. But the word the New Testament uses for them, charismata, comes from the word for grace. The gifts aren’t meant to divide us. They’re small portions of God’s grace, given so the Church can do its work in the world. In this episode, I share the gifts Paul names in 1 Corinthians, Romans and Ephesians, and some practical values for using them well. Serve others. Let love guide you. Be naturally supernatural, without a special voice or religious performance. Hold your impressions humbly, and respect other people’s agency before God. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, ask the Spirit to refresh and enliven your gift of leadership, and to give you the gifts you need in each moment of your day. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Power is caught in a cultural tug-of-war. Some people chase it for selfish ends and harm others along the way. Others, seeing that damage, want to get rid of power entirely. Leaders have plenty of choices about power, but getting rid of it isn’t one of them. In Scripture, power is a good gift. God’s power made the world and still sustains it. In this episode, I invite you to let Scripture wash over you. We move from Jesus returning to Galilee “in the power of the Spirit” in Luke 4, through Paul’s prayers for the churches, to his reminder to Timothy that the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid. The goal isn’t to fear power or to grab it. The goal is to become leaders who use God’s power for the purposes of his kingdom. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, ask the Holy Spirit to empower your leadership. You might start with this simple prayer attributed to St. Augustine, then add your own words: “Act in me, Holy Spirit, that my work may be holy.” Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Many leaders keep the Holy Spirit at a distance because they’ve seen what passes for “Spirit-filled”: strange prophecies, self-congratulatory hype, churches they were embarrassed to invite friends to. They don’t want to be weird, and they don’t want to hurt people. That’s a fair concern. But the weirdness we fear comes from us, not from the Spirit. In this episode, I share a conversation with two old friends who asked how to trust the Spirit after upsetting experiences. Trust can’t be faked or forced. It grows through experience. Today’s practice: Make Henri Nouwen’s words your prayer before you lead today: “Holy Spirit, in my leadership, be the center of all I think, say or do.” Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

When we think of the Father or the Son, something concrete comes to mind: a creator, a parent, a carpenter we could picture working down the street. When we think of the Spirit, many of us draw a blank. We worry about excesses, we’re unsure what spiritual gifts are, and so we quietly lead without him. That neglect can feel justified, but it grieves the Spirit. In this episode, I go back to the upper room, where Jesus told his frightened friends that it was good for them that he was leaving, because otherwise the Advocate would not come. At Pentecost, the personal presence of Jesus with the disciples became the personal power of Jesus in them. That is still how God puts his power to work through leaders today. Today’s practice: Before you lead today, ask Jesus to fill you with the power of the Spirit, with nothing held back. Ask the Spirit to transform who you are and empower the work in front of you. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Sooner or later, every leader asks the question: Who do I think I am? Who am I to think I can do real good, or change my part of the world for the better? The world is smaller than ever, but its problems are huge and stubborn. When we face them, whether it’s a justice issue or a hard situation in our own workplace, we can start to feel small and lose our confidence and composure. In this episode, I explain where that poise comes from: knowing that God has authorized you to do his good in the world. Picture the detectives in the British crime shows my wife and I watch, reaching into their coat pockets to show the badge that says they’re authorized. We trace that authority through Scripture: the creation accounts, God’s call to Abraham, Psalm 8 (“You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,” as The Message puts it), Jesus sending out the Twelve, the Great Commission and Revelation 22. Today’s practice: Before you lead, ground yourself in the confidence that you’re authorized to be an ambassador of God’s kingdom. Name the place where you feel smallest right now. Then find your poise by remembering that you go there as an agent of healing and repair, an instrument of God’s good in the world. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Every leader keeps coming back to the same fork in the road: Will I lead for the crowd, or for an audience of one? The issues change and the names change, but the choice stays the same. Crowds are loud and immediate. God is often hidden and gentle. Without intentional practices, God can be quietly squeezed out of our leadership. In this final episode of our “Audience of One” series, I explain why your choice of audience shapes everything downstream: who you become, the values you actually lead from, and how the people you lead experience you. Today’s practice: Take a moment to wonder what it would look like to say, in this specific season of leadership, “As for me and my leadership, I will serve the Lord.” Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Most leadership happens where people can see it: the decisions, the meetings, the results. Being visible isn’t the problem. The problem is what happens inside us when we need people to notice before we can keep going. Jesus said no one can serve two masters, and wanting to be recognized is one of the quietest masters a leader can serve. In this episode, I look at Jesus’ warning in the Sermon on the Mount about practicing righteousness to be seen. I also look at an ancient practice that speaks directly to that craving: the discipline of secrecy. Today’s practice: Do one act of leadership today without being noticed. It could be an encouragement, a hard conversation or a behind-the-scenes decision. Then pay attention to what that hiddenness does to your soul. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe

Most leaders already know the right answer. We preach that Jesus is Lord, and we admire Paul’s single-mindedness. But knowing doesn’t automatically change how we act. Our audiences are loud, persistent and immediate. They’re in our faces before we’ve finished our morning coffee, and they follow us home in texts, emails and calls. The voice of heaven is quieter. It isn’t absent, but it can get lost in the noise of leadership. In this episode, I introduce you to Polycarp, an early church bishop who learned the faith from the Apostle John and faced pressure from every side. His clarity of mind and heart came from decades of choosing, again and again, whose voice to trust. Jesus modeled the same thing: His leadership could flex because his core was fixed. Today’s practice: Bring yourself back to your first love, the soil your leadership grew from. Ask the question Polycarp settled long before he was put on the spot: To whom do I belong? Then anchor yourself in that audience of one before the day’s demands begin. Follow Before You Lead on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before You Lead is a free gift from Todd Hunter Ministries. If this episode helped you, share it with a leader you know. Get full access to The Gospel of the Kingdom at bishoptoddhunter.substack.com/subscribe