Lead-Like-Jesus
Short answer: To lead like Jesus is to hold authority the way he did in John 13:1-17, where the one the disciples called Teacher and Lord knelt with a basin and towel and washed their feet. Jesus did not deny that he was Lord; he redefined what Lordship does. He told them plainly, "For I have given you an example, that you should also do as I have done to you" (John 13:15). Leading like Jesus therefore means using position, resources, and voice for the good of those you lead, not for the aggrandisement of yourself. It is not passivity, abdication, or a technique to make teams more compliant. It is a settled posture of love that expresses itself in specific, often unglamorous acts of service.
What John 13:1-17 Actually Shows
John sets the scene with unusual solemnity. He tells us that Jesus knew his hour had come and that he had come from God and was going to God, and then notes that Jesus "having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (John 13:1). The foot washing is not an interruption of the Gospel's great themes; it is the display of them. The one who came from the Father and was returning to the Father now stoops to the floor with a basin.
John's detail matters. He says Jesus rose from supper and laid aside his outer garments, took a towel and girded himself, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. That is a household servant's work, and a menial one in a dusty, sandalled culture. No rabbi would do it for his students. Jesus does it for men who had just been arguing, in Luke's account, about which of them was the greatest.
Foot washing was so far beneath them that no disciple moved. If a basin of water was going to be used at all, the most junior person in the room would use it. So when Jesus takes it, he overturns every instinct about rank. The washing is not an object lesson about humility in the abstract; it is a concrete act of love performed on real, dirty feet, by a real Lord, on the night he would be betrayed.
Peter's Resistance and Why It Matters for Leaders
Peter's response is where most readers feel the force of the scene. Peter refuses: he cannot picture his Master on his knees. Jesus answers that unless he washes him, Peter has no part with him. That answer is about far more than hygiene. It is about whether Peter will receive grace from the hand of the Lord in the form the Lord offers it. Peter then overcorrects and asks for his hands and head as well, and Jesus tells him that the one who has bathed only needs to wash his feet.
Why does this matter for leadership? Because leaders who cannot receive ministry will inevitably struggle to give it. A leader who is always the one with the answers, always the one supplying, never the one being served, will eventually serve out of a depleted and perhaps resentful heart. Jesus teaches Peter that receiving from him is the doorway into fellowship with him. Servant leadership flows out of being washed by Christ, not from trying harder to be Christ to other people.
Note too that the washing does not erase the betrayal or the denial. Judas is present. Jesus washes the feet of the man who will hand him over, and of the man who will three times deny him. Servant leadership in the New Testament is not conditioned on the worthiness of the people being served. Jesus serves the unworthy because he loves, not because they have earned it.
The Lord Who Serves Without Ceasing to Be Lord
After the washing, Jesus asks whether they understand what he has done. He calls them Teacher and Lord, and he does not renounce the titles. He says he is both. Then he says that the servant is not greater than his lord, and the one who is sent is not greater than the one who sent him. The lesson is not that authority does not exist among believers. The lesson is that this authority operates in the way Christ operates.
This is the thread that runs through the rest of the New Testament. In Mark 10:42-45, Jesus explicitly contrasts the world's model with his own, and the contrast is about lording and serving, not about abolishing leadership. In Philippians 2:5-11, Paul says the mind that was in Christ Jesus is the pattern for believers, and he describes one who humbled himself and became obedient even to death, and therefore God highly exalted him. Humility is the road to exaltation because it is the character of God's own Son.
So Jesus remains Lord through the towel. The towel does not demote him; it reveals who he actually is. Similarly, a leader who serves does not cease to be a leader. He reveals what leadership is for.
Servant Leadership in Ordinary Places
Most people who read John 13 are not elders or executives. They are parents, supervisors, teachers, coaches, committee members, older siblings, and volunteers. The passage speaks directly into those settings because it is about authority in any form, however small. The teacher who notices the quiet student and stays late, the supervisor who takes the blame for a team error, the parent who gets up in the night without being asked: these are foot-washing moments, and they are not less significant because no one sees them.
What distinguishes Christian leadership is not that it produces better results, though it often does, but that it is aimed at the good of the other person rather than the benefit of the leader. That aim is not automatic. It must be deliberately cultivated and repeatedly chosen, especially when it is inconvenient. In practice this means a willingness to do the tasks no one sees, to absorb cost without needing credit, and to keep serving when no one says thank you.
It also means refusing the ordinary temptations of position: using information as leverage, letting others carry the risk while keeping the credit, becoming unapproachable as a sign of status. None of those things look like a basin and a towel. All of them are the opposite of what Jesus did on the night he was betrayed.
Servant Leadership Is Not Abdication
One common mistake is to read John 13 as a mandate for passivity. That reading breaks the rest of the Gospels. Jesus cleansed the temple, rebuked Peter, corrected the Pharisees, and gave commands with authority. He washed feet and he also said hard things. Service does not mean refusal to make decisions, to set direction, or to say no. It means those things are done for the good of the people entrusted to you rather than for your own comfort or reputation.
A second mistake is to turn foot washing into a technique. Some leadership literature borrows the language of servant leadership to describe a management style that keeps employees productive. That may be good management, but it is not the biblical thing. The biblical thing is not a method for getting more out of people; it is love embodied in action, whether or not anyone benefits the leader in return.
The test is simple and uncomfortable. Would you still serve this person if they never noticed, never thanked you, and never advanced your position? If yes, you are near the heart of the passage. If the service depends on the return, then something else is happening.
The Pattern Shepherds Are Called to Follow
Peter, who once refused to be washed, later wrote to the elders of the churches. In 1 Peter 5:1-4 he addresses elders as a fellow elder and calls them to shepherd the flock of God, exercising oversight not under compulsion but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as lording it over those entrusted to you but being examples to the flock. He has learned the lesson of the upper room. The Lord of glory served him, and now Peter tells the leaders to serve likewise.
What Peter adds is the motive of reward. He does not motivate by guilt but by promise: when the chief Shepherd is revealed, those who have served faithfully will receive the unfading crown of glory. He also frames his own authority as a witness of the sufferings of Christ, so his entire elder theology is anchored in the cross rather than in rank.
Jesus himself used shepherd language in John 10:11-18, where he says, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." That is the ceiling of servant leadership. It does not simply go last; it gives itself for the sake of the flock. Human leaders will not literally atone for anyone, but they can adopt the posture of laying down their lives for the good of those they lead.
How to Begin Practicing It This Week
Start with the people already in your care. Name them. A parent, a spouse, a colleague, a student, a congregant, an employee. Then ask a concrete question: what would serve this person's actual good this week? Not what would impress them, and not what would make you feel generous, but what would genuinely help them flourish. Then do that thing, quietly if possible, and do not collect the debt.
Then examine your use of authority. Where do you currently use position for your own convenience? Where do you avoid the unglamorous work because someone else can do it? Where have you been unapproachable as a means of maintaining status? These are the specific places where the towel goes unused. Repentance here is not dramatic; it is often a single reordered decision.
Finally, receive before you give. Let someone serve you. Let a friend pray for you. Let a co-worker help you with something you could do yourself. Jesus told Peter that receiving the washing was the condition of having a part with him. Leaders who never receive from Christ or from others will eventually serve out of an empty tank, and the service will curdle into resentment.
Biblical fidelity check
John 13:1-17 establishes that Jesus, knowing his full identity and destiny, chose to wash his disciples' feet and told them to follow his example. It establishes that this service flowed from love and that it was directed even at those who would fail him. It does not establish a formal church office, a command that every meeting must include foot washing, or a claim that leaders should never exercise real authority. The passage shows the character of Christ-shaped authority, not the abolition of authority.
A common misreading is to treat the passage as if serving means that a leader must never confront sin, make a hard call, or speak with plainness. That reading contradicts the same Gospel in which Jesus rebukes and corrects. Another misreading is to make foot washing a purely symbolic gesture and miss that it was a real, costly act on a real night. The text will not support either devotional vagueness or the smug inversion that makes servants into doormats. The Lord who washed feet still says, "the servant is not greater than his lord," which is a statement about imitation, not about worth. Faithful believers differ on how directly to apply foot washing as a church practice; the posture it reveals is not in dispute.
Other passages that speak to John 13
If you want to trace this theme through Scripture, the following studies are helpful. For the call to follow Jesus in the Gospels, see Jesus and the Gospels Season 1 Episode 4 Bible Study Guide: Peter, Calling, and Following Jesus. For the same themes in the letters, see 1 John Bible Study: Seeing Jesus in 1 John and 1 Peter Bible Study: Seeing Jesus in 1 Peter, where Peter's own transformation from resistant disciple to shepherd of elders comes into focus. For a close reading of the Gospel itself, see John Bible Study: Seeing Jesus in John. Together these passages show that servant leadership is not a standalone slogan but the consistent pattern of Christ's life and the shape he calls his people to take.
Frequently asked questions
Does leading like Jesus mean leaders should never use authority?
No. Jesus calls himself Teacher and Lord even while washing feet, and he exercises real authority throughout the Gospels. The point is not that authority disappears but that it is used for the good of those under it rather than for the comfort of the one holding it. Peter tells elders to exercise oversight, but not as lording it over those entrusted to them. So authority is affirmed; domination is rejected. A leader who never makes decisions or never confronts a problem is not serving the people; they may simply be avoiding the cost of leadership.
Is foot washing something churches should practice today?
Faithful Christians differ here. Some churches practice foot washing as an ordinance, pointing to John 13:14-15 as a continuing command. Others regard the foot washing as a cultural expression of humility and hospitality, and they apply the principle of serving one another without reenacting the exact act. Both positions have been held by serious believers. What no reading of the passage permits is the dismissal of humble service as optional. Jesus said the servant is not greater than his lord, and that applies whether or not a basin is involved.
How is servant leadership different from being a doormat?
A doormat serves out of fear or a need to be liked, and often resents it. A servant leader serves out of love shaped by Christ, with a clear conscience, and is willing to say hard things when love requires it. Jesus served his disciples and also corrected them sharply. He washed feet and rebuked Peter moments later. The difference is not whether the leader is gentle, but whether the leader is governed by the good of the other person or by fear of losing approval. Servant leadership can say no. A doormat cannot.
