Kenotic Leadership

Two years ago, after thirty years of looking, I found my father in an “old soldier’s home” in Monroe, Louisiana. He was 73-years-old and I didn’t even recognize him as he came into the room on a motorized wheelchair. He was much heavier, he was bald and the end of his nose had been cut off to remove a spot of cancer. I asked him if this was Henry Hardgrove’s room and he said, “It’s me.” I introduced him to my wife and three children, who for the first time, were meeting the grandfather they had only heard about.

He was suspicious of my motives and began the conversation by telling me that I was fat. At forty-five years old I was, admittedly, much larger than the last time he saw me at age fifteen. We talked as I tried to update him on my life. It was fairly clear that he had been lonely and embittered for the past thirty years. He was still angry with my mother (though he was the one who left), and he attempted to justify his absence and lack of financial support.

I simply told him that I had no desire to go back and rehash the past. “All I want to do,” I said, “is to start with today and move forward.” I wasn’t there to blame, though I could have. I wasn’t there to judge him, or to belittle him, or to castigate. All I was there to do was to start with this moment and try to have a relationship with my father in his last few years of life. I had emptied myself of anger, though I had a right to be angry. I had emptied myself of bitterness, though I could have been bitter. I had emptied myself of my right to an apology, though my sister and I certainly deserved one. I came to him emptied of all those things and was willing, instead, to fill the void with a meaningful relationship. I think that by the end of that day, he finally believed me.

As I left him that next day, I bent down to his chair and hugged him and said, “I love you dad.” Did he deserve that? He certainly hadn’t earned it, but he was and is my father and I am compelled by the Word to honor my father and my mother. Before I released him from that hug, he said, “I love you too.” I was 45-years-old and that was the first time I’d ever heard him tell me that he loved me. There is healing in those words. This is the power of kenosis. Had I not emptied myself of my rights as an abandoned son, I would never have heard those words and I would have passed from this life without ever hearing my father tell me that he loved me.

Jesus had rights as the Son of God, but he surrendered his rights and humbled Himself and saved the world (Phil. 2:5-11). Through the humility of the Son, we all get to hear the Father say, “I love you.” With Jesus as your example, a willingness to voluntarily lay down your rights and empty yourself so that you can be filled with all that others have to add to your life is a powerful thing. It is the very power that Jesus employed to become one of us, to walk with us, and to save us from our sins.

Leadership that must always appeal to the title or the rights of the position is operating from a posture of weakness and while such a leader may coerce the followers to act, their hearts will never be in the task. But leaders who are willing to empty themselves, without losing themselves (Jesus never ceased to be God even though He became human), is a leader that has perspective, gains respect, and wins the hearts of the people. This is the secret of kenotic leadership.