The word "Leader" is meaningless when there are no followers. You're the salt of the world, but you can't impact yourself. Leadership is no child's play, especially spiritual leadership. A spiritual leader is a follower who has developed to the extent of leading. A good spiritual leader can do well in any other sector.

source

Spiritual leadership is really so spiritual, in the sense that God elects certain people and put them in position to groom others. A spiritual leader doesn't necessarily have to be a pastor. He's that believer that is placed in position to groom and instruct certain people. Where there are spiritual leaders, spiritual growth is inevitable.

Characteristics of a good spiritual leader

-Humility: A good spiritual leader has the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn. They do not see themselves better than their followers. Rather they see it as an opportunity and a privilege to be in position of leadership. They fight to kill pride before it germinates. They are good followers.

They submit to authority and that's the reason they keep developing and getting better. Humility is not claiming to be less than who you are. It is admitting who are and not entertaining pride. God loves humility so he uses these set of leaders. They grow very rapidly. He anoints them and equips them with all they need to function effectively in their position.

-Possession of the right motive: Good spiritual leaders don't seek to get the attention of people to themselves. They seek to draw the attention of people to God. They don't do things to impress men. They work with the right understanding. They their leadership as a kingdom assignment and they see themselves accountable to God.

source

God doesn't support people that work for him with a wrong motive. When you walk for God with a wrong motive, everything becomes wrong. Possessing a wrong motive, the leader hardly discover his real self because he keeps on faking to impress people.

-Spiritual maturity: This is not about Men with grey hair, but about men with a deep knowledge of God's word and a conscious application of it. Nobody wants to be led by a baby. A spiritual leader must be matured, if not, he can't make reasonable amount of impact.

Maturity makes the words of the leader valuable. When he's immatured, his words lacks value. Maturity is also brought about by the challenges encountered and conquered. This is a reason God allows us to encounter challenge; to build our trust level, faith level and commitment to him.

source

-Living by example: A good spiritual leader lives by example. He doesn't just preach with his words, he preaches with his life too. He sets the standard for others to follow. He works constantly to Worth his position. He motivates others with his lifestyle. He recommends solutions that have worked for him in the past for the present problems of his followers.

Living by example is the only way the followers can be impacted. For example, it's easy to instruct people to pray for 1 hour when your average prayer duration is 3 hours. People are not moved like what they hear like they are moved by what they see. So to impact people, the leader has to be committed to his own spiritual growth.

-Ability to Stand up for his followers: A good spiritual leader backs up his followers when they are weak and cannot. He must be an intercessor. There are kinds of challenges that are accompanied by the inability to pray; Challenges that weaken a fellow so much that he finds it difficult to fight in prayer or apply truths that he's discovered from God's word.

source

Times like this, the leader is needed so much. He should be able to give strengthening words of hope when a follower Is down. He also shouldn't give up easily on his followers. That moment when a a follower feels he's not doing well, all he needs is for his leader to remind him of his believe in him and his potentials.

• He is disciplined: A leader that is not disciplined is not permitted to be in position to discipline. A leader should be orderly, he should be able to plan well and effectively, he should be a good record keeper, he should keep to his promises and agreements too and he should be able to control himself in times when he ought to.
  A leader that behaves like his followers loses his respect. He must be morally up to standard.

source