Leaders often gravitate to the flashy first impression, low-hanging fruit, or the approval and support garnered from successful fast action. But when a godly long view is our aim, we develop a whole different class of skills, relationships, and priorities that can carry us throughout a lifetime of meaningful leadership rather than allowing our focus to fix solely on the next hurdle ahead.

Which is why I've imagined a reality show for leaders ever since the genre took over the television airwaves.

The show pits three leadership teams in a boat race. Of course it is filmed on a beautiful white sandy beach with crystal clear blue water, located in a tropical string of islands in some remote part of the world that makes television producers happy.

Teams compete for the right to select one of three boats available to them: a speed boat, very fast but vulnerable to rough seas; a cabin cruiser, strong and stable but only half as fast as the first boat; and a simple, slow, single-mast sail boat with ...