Downward mobility and leadership

From Henri Nouwen, in The Only Necessary Thing
"God's way is not the way of upward mobility, but of downward mobility.
You know, as well as I do, that the question we will finally hear is not going to be:
How much did you earn during your lifetime? or How many friends did you make? or How much progress did you make in your career?
No, the question for us will be: What did you do for the least of mine?....Have you seen the humiliated Christ in the faces of the poor?

God has chosen to be revealed in a crucified humanity."


These words from Henri Nouwen speak to my heart.
When everything around us tells us to: "go up, be higher, be more, do more, earn more, see more", Jesus reminds us that the way forward is always down:  Meet me in the places where you are most vulnerable, and in those around you who are most vulnerable.

How do I reconcile this with leadership? Surely, leadership is about influence, progress, and change.

I wonder--
Perhaps it is by recognizing that the leadership of Jesus calls for surrender, death, and sacrifice.  When we lead from a place of vulnerability, with our ears and eyes hearing and seeing the vulnerable, for the sake of the vulnerable, perhaps then, we have begun to bring together leadership and the "crucified humanity."

Jesus, I am easily sidetracked by the voices around me.  Keep me in the way downward, with my eyes on the vulnerable, my ears tuned to the voiceless, and may any "progress" that is made be reaped by the vulnerable.