While Wesley and George Whitefield were concerned about theology, their primary interest was that each person have a profound experience with God. This required an idiom in touch with people. It quickly becomes clear that good leadership goes well beyond true ideas and right policies. Mary Parker Follett, an early twentieth century writer on organizational life, maintained that personal honesty exhausts no one's duty in life. We want no sterile virtues here.
Leadership begins with people.
I remember my surprise in the 1960s when I read sermons that Martin Luther King, Jr., had preached as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years before. What surprised me was not the content of the sermons, but that he used for his scripture readings the King James Version of the Bible. Refusing to read from the King James Version was almost an article of faith for literate clergy I knew in that polarized situation. His reading from the King James Version helped me understand that he was a pastor who understood that there were more important issues for him to face at the time. It also showed me a pastor more concerned with effective ministry in a particular congregation than what others might think about him.