It is hard to trust a leader who doesn’t admit their failures, or worse, doesn’t even recognize them in the first place.

Last week, CT’s president Tim Dalrymple spoke about Christlike leadership at a conference by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, emphasizing the biblical pattern of subverting our expectations so that the first would be last, the foolish things would confound the wise, the weak would shame the strong.

“Christian leadership will often look precisely the opposite of worldly leadership. That may sound like an obvious point, but I think it’s easy to forget,” he said.

Humility is a key way Christian leaders avoid falling into the power-hungry paradigm that can come with being at the top. That means readily owning up to their mistakes, working well with a team, and approaching leadership as an opportunity to serve.

I was heartened to read this recent excerpt from Beth Moore’s new book, in which the country’s leading Bible study author admits to some times where she’s found herself spiritual misguided, overzealous, or not in line with the Lord. She offers some lessons for when the rest of us realize we are similarly off-track.

“Only one thing is worse than producing no fruit: producing bad fruit,” she wrote in Chasing Vines. “Let there be no mistaking that people of God, the chosen branches of the perfect Vine, can bear unripe, sour, bitter, rotten, and foul-smelling fruit. I’ve done it. I’ve also seen it, smelled it, and eaten it. We can be moral and religiously upright and still produce rotten fruit.”

While covering news for CT, I have followed plenty of stories where leaders have ignored the bad fruit in their ministries and doubled-down to defend their approaches. I think we’d all be better off if we readily evaluated how God is at work in each area of our lives and be willing to make a shift if he reveals otherwise.

“Since the Father calls Jesus-followers to live immensely fruitful lives, it stands to reason that no question is more relevant than this: What kind of fruit are we producing?” Moore says. “We can’t see fruit the way God can, but with his help, we are fully capable of distinguishing between good fruit and bad fruit.”

When Beth Moore bears bad fruit, she’s grateful that she’s finally able to recognize it—knowing how easily and how long we can adapt to our own rotten lifestyle, and how God will also use that season somehow for his good.

Kate