It is that time of year. The season to again reflect on the life, teachings and leadership of Jesus Christ.

Leadership is the process of influence. The process of influencing the thinking and the behaviour of others for worthwhile achievement. Jesus Christ has been one of the few people in the history of the world who have had a dramatic and long-term influence on hundreds of millions of people. Which places him as one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen, heard and experienced.

Jesus held a clear vision of who he was, where he was going and where he was trying to take his followers. And when he called his disciples to follow him, he gave them the support and guidance they required to develop into ‘fishers of men’. These are all key leadership practices.

Yet it was the message that Christ brought us, and lived, which is the major source of his influence.

As Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations with God books, puts it, “The grandest teaching of Christ was not that you shall have everlasting life, but that you do; not that you shall have brotherhood in God, but that you do; not that you shall have whatever you request, but that you do. All that is required is to know this. For you are the creator of your reality, and life can show up in no other way for you than that way in which you think it will.”

Christ was very clear on this teaching. For which I am most thankful.