A friend called me recently. A mega-church pastor has offered him a senior position on the staff. "But," he said, "there's one problem. We have a fundamental disagreement on a philosophy of vulnerability. He thinks it's bad and I think it's good."

If you're a leader, I hope that statement explodes in your spirit. It does in mine. It takes a secure leader to be vulnerable. By showing his weaknesses, he gives his enemies potential weapons with which to attack him. Expose your underbelly to someone and they might shoot you - it goes against our self-protective instincts. My guess is that maybe 10% of leaders practice this.

The problem is, self-protection isn't Jesus' way of leading. He said, "The first shall be last and the last first." When you're weak, you'll be made strong. In essence, "Show your underbelly to the people who might hurt you and let me take care of protecting you." And, of course, he modeled this for us right to the end.

Only by making ourselves vulnerable do we truly empower our followers. A great majority of people live with truck-loads of self-doubt. They are well aware of how they regularly mess up and live in prisons of fear.

The key to unlock the jail door and liberate them from this prison is vulnerability. "You're not alone," it says. "To be human is to mess up. Here's what grace looks like. I've got prison clothes on, too."

Vulnerability is a good thing. It allows us to take the enemy's weapons and use them against him. Do yourself a favor - never follow a leader who doesn't regularly model vulnerability. Any gospel that doesn't include large measures of vulnerability is not a true gospel and any leader worth following will wear his humanity openly.

See another blog on vulnerability here.