Time for Self-Sacrificial Leadership in the Christian University World

Many universities in America are experiencing difficult times. The combination of enrollment declines and operating cost increases has pushed some universities beyond their ability to adapt. A growing number of institutions suffering financial exigency have either closed or been merged into more economically healthy university systems.¹ Christian Scholar’s Review Editor, Dr. Perry Glanzer, has offered that the sky is not falling and that Christian universities, in particular, seem to be weathering the challenging environment better than others.²

Nonetheless, recent research published by Dr. James Long at Friends University maps the probability of failure for a broad range of Christian universities across America.³ The headline message is that one in four may not survive through 2028. It is a sobering presentation.

As in any organization under pressure, leaders of Christian universities entering this period will have to make some decisions about how to manage their institutions. They may be called upon to do hard things, like forego popular initiatives or postpone strategic investments. In my home College, we recently determined to close some low-enrollment programs. Other universities have launched major reductions in staff.

In my career experience, both in higher education and in business, these measures are always painful, but they are the worst at Christian organizations. In the Christian university, we see our co-workers as more than the current occupants of organizational roles. We see them as brothers and sisters. We love them. We pray for them. We do life with them in a way that you rarely see in a secular institution.

Providing leadership in these situations can be a particular challenge. The hard decisions leaders have to take may be necessary for the institution to survive and flourish but employees and other stakeholders will have a lot of questions, not all of which the law will allow us to answer. Organizational leaders need not be faulted for taking hard decisions to save their institutions. It all depends on how they take them. It all depends on leadership style. Fortunately, business leadership literature has some ideas to offer university administrators in these circumstances.

Many a Christian organization, including some Christian universities, ascribe to the theory of servant leadership. This theory has a number of benefits in difficult times. Servant leadership requires leaders to engage their subordinates in their own evaluative regime, avoiding the appearance of heavy handedness when having to identify positions for termination. It also requires subordinates to be involved in the evaluation of the leader’s performance, providing a strong feedback loop for leaders having to navigate tough times.⁴

Servant leadership has a history of producing greater employee buy-in and commitment to the organizational strategy; very handy when you are trying to do more with fewer resources.⁵ One should bear in mind, however, that the research is mixed in this area. Other leadership theories would require a very different approach than servant leadership for organizations under pressure. Dating all the way back to the 1950’s, research performed at Ohio State indicates that more directive, less participative styles of leadership may be both more effective and more accepted by subordinates in times of organizational crisis.⁶

Many Christians who ascribe to servant leadership attribute it to Christ (John 13:1-17) and interpret the Gospels as examples of Jesus performing as a servant leader. Given their view of its biblical origins, they see it as a mandatory leadership style for any Christian institution. Others, including myself, would disagree.⁷ Details and definitions matter in this discussion. Those who trace servant leadership to its modern origins in the seminal work of Robert Greenleaf⁸ may be more apt to distinguish it from the work of Christ reflected in the New Testament. Those who adopt the modern scholarly terminology but then apply it to Biblical exegesis may find themselves more amenable to identifying Christ as a servant leader.

The time may be right in the Christian university world for an alternative to servant leadership, an alternative possibly more identifiable with Christ and promising greater benefits for institutions in trouble, the theory of self-sacrificial leadership. Like servant leadership, self-sacrificial leadership draws its origins from transformational leadership theory.⁹ As the name implies, it requires that leaders put the needs of their subordinates before their own. It requires leaders to take on more work, forego rewards, and share power with subordinates in a way they may not have done before.¹⁰ For the leaders, it is no picnic, but it has been shown to produce significant results in subordinates.

Followers of self-sacrificial leaders tend to perceive their leaders as more effective and influential and, particularly in times of crisis, more charismatic.¹¹

Perhaps most importantly, more than servant leaders, self-sacrificial leaders are associated with providing a sense of justice in the midst of organizational change.¹² When faculty and staff see their university having to reduce its expenses, perceiving those reductions as “fair” or “just” can do wonders to preserve a productive and cohesive culture.

Beyond the potential correlation between self-sacrificial leadership and positive follower perceptions for Christian university leaders, this theory also has the benefit of biblical identification with the person of Christ. While modern evangelicals tend to identify Christ with terminology like Lord, Savior, and King, much of the biblical narrative tends to lean heavily towards identifying Christ as a sacrifice. Christ is characterized throughout His ministry and in messianic prophecy, both in the Old and New Testaments, as the lamb of God (John 1:29; Isaiah 53:7; Revelation 5:12; 1 Peter 1:19).

Centuries and continents removed from ancient Jewish worship, the terminology may not hit us the same way it did the original audience. First-century Jews would have readily identified these references to a lamb as reflecting the sacrifices of the temple cult. In this context, lambs were not cute pets. They had one purpose. You sacrificed them. In the famous kenosis text of Philippians 2:5-8 Saint Paul describes Christ as having emptied and humbled himself not only to live as a man but to die as a criminal. This description correlates directly with the self-sacrificial leadership requirement that leaders must give up their status, privilege, and power. The calling to follow Jesus is not a calling to leadership. It is a calling to self-sacrifice (“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” Matthew 16:24b, NASB).

What might self-sacrifice look like among Christian university leadership? I have seen a few good examples. A college leader I know offered to take a pay cut if it would help avoid having to lay off one of his subordinates. A faculty member friend of mine, though protected by his university’s tenure system, engineered his own departure so that his untenured colleagues could remain and teach the courses that would otherwise have been part of his teaching load. Perhaps one of the best acts of self-sacrifice for a university leader whose organization is going through tough times is to just accept the criticism that might be directed at him. Even if we would like to blame our organization’s troubles on the external environment, it was under our leadership that the problems landed. There were undoubtedly strategic choices we might have made to mitigate some of the pain. Sacrificing our pride and humbly acknowledging whatever role we might have had in the current situation seems like a great place to start.

Maybe our followers will respond by perceiving us as more effective, charismatic, and just, as the theory suggests. Maybe they will not. The great part about being a leader in a Christian university is that we need not evaluate our leadership strategies strictly based on their effectiveness. We must first and foremost evaluate them on their measure of adherence to the commands and example of Christ.

Leaders whose organizations are presently under existential threat may naturally fear that this approach will lead to their replacement. One could understand if a board of regents or directors determined to take the car keys from the individuals who drove the bus into the ditch and hand them over to others to drive it out. These are times in which our commitment to discipleship may be tested. The cross we carry is not merely a burden; it is an instrument of execution. I would submit that those who would rather externalize responsibility (blame others) in these times risk more than their leadership positions. They risk their identification with Christ at a time when we need it most.

1. Evan Castillo and Lyss Welding. 2025. “Tracking College Closures and Mergers” BestColleges. https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/closed-colleges-list-statistics-major-closures/.
2. Perry Glanzer. 2025. “Scaremongers Take Note: Christian Higher Education Enrollment Recently Grew by 1.4%” Christian Scholar’s Review Blog. Scaremongers Take Note: Christian Higher Education Enrollment Recently Grew by 1.4% – Christian Scholar’s Review
3. 🏛️ U.S. Collegiate Deathpool.
4. James Autry, The Servant Leader: How to Build a Creative Team, Develop Great Morale, and Improve Bottom-Line Performance. (Three Rivers Press, 2001).
5. Danon Carter and Timothy Baghurst. 2014. “The influence of servant leadership on restaurant employee engagement” Journal of Business Ethics 124, no.3: 453-464
6. Chester Schriesheim and Barbara Bird. 1979. “Contributions of the Ohio State Studies to the Field of Leadership” Journal of Management 5, no.2: 135-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920637900500204
7. Larry G. Locke and Baylee Smith. 2021. “Is Servant Leadership Christian?” Christian Scholar’s Review Blog. Guest Post: Is Servant Leadership Christian? – Christian Scholar’s Review
8. Robert Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader. (The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, 1970).
9. James Burns, Leadership. (Harper & Row, 1978); Bernard Bass, Leadership and performance beyond expectations. (Free Press, 1985).
10. Yeon Choi and Renate Mai-Dalton. 1998. “On the leadership function of self-sacrifice” Leadership Quarterly 9, no.4: 475-501.
11. David De Cremer. 2002. “Charismatic leadership and cooperation in social dilemmas: A matter of Ttransforming motives?” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 32, no.5: 997-1016.
12. Jeffrey A. Matteson and Justin A. Irving. 2006. “Servant versus self-sacrificial leadership: A behavioral comparison of two follow-oriented leadership theories” International Journal of Leadership Studies 2, no. 1: 36-51.