Biden Stepping Aside

President Biden’s actions this week as he stepped out of the 2024 presidential running race give us pause to reflect on leadership. Regardless of your political persuasion, and without speaking to his whole political career, this last act of stepping aside is to be commended. While many will debate the timing of this decision, regardless, it takes courage and humility to finish leading before you had expected or planned – to know your time is up is to know that you are limited. To know our own limits as leaders, whatever sphere we exercise leadership in, is important. A leader who knows their limits, will also know when to keep to those limits and when to extend them temporarily.

In anxious times I think it is easy to look to leaders to try and solve our problems. And leaders who care may try to do that, often by over-extending beyond their ability or authority – forcing things that shouldn’t be forced, attempting to control the uncontrollable. A leader who knows their limits will seek to lead, but within their capacity. Rather than an anxious over-activity, a limited leader may be calm and steadfast, leading not through control or coercion but through calm. They will understand the full extent of the problems and will also understand their own ability correctly too.

In the end, a limited leader in humility knows that while they may plant, another will water. A Christian leader also knows that while they plant and another water, it is God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7).