Month: August 2013

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leadership 5: so….does “it” really exist?

canoe1Four weeks into our exploration of leadership (and specifically ‘religious leadership’), having spend the first couple exploring definitions and understandings, and the next couple unpacking the inter-relationship between power and leadership, we come to a set of questions that have stopped me in my tracks.

Does leadership really exist?

And, if it does, what about ‘Christian’ leadership? What is (or can be) specifically christian about leadership?

Of course leadership has to exist. It’s in nearly every conversation about the state of the world, the state of the church, the identified solutions to all our woes. It’s a gift, a skill, an approach.

Leadership must exist, or we wouldn’t talk about it so much.

For something we are so very definite about, it gets ever more murky when it comes to understanding, describing, or (heaven forbid) defining the term. There are so many different understandings, so many different definitions, so many wonderful quotes about what leadership is

Some say leadership is influence.  But that might just be semantics. Surely influence is influence.  Why introduce another term?

Some say leadership is the capacity to get a group of people to do something.  But maybe that’s just coersion, or inspiration or bullying. Power at work, rather than leadership.

The more I think about leadership, the more I wonder if it’s not really a skill or gift that is practiced by an individual (or group) who is “being a leader”, but is actually about the perception and experience of the follower.

If two people are looking at the same ‘leader’, one is inspired and the other left cold…in what sense is that leader genuinely offering leadership?

If two segments of our society look to the same leader, half are convinced of great, powerful, wonderful leadership, but the other half see abuse, bullying and short-sightedness….in what sense is leadership actually being offered?

Perhaps leadership isn’t something that is offered at all, but it’s something that is received, or experienced.

What am I talking about? Clearly, I have no idea. But stay with me while I wonder aloud.

A few years ago, I worked in an outdoor education organisation.  Our stock in trade was risk.  Specifically, we put people in risky situations to help them learn something from the experience about themselves, their capacity, their group, or about leadership (yes…true!).

There is something powerful about fear, about our emotional response in situations of great risk that make those moments priceless development opportunities.

Except the reality is that we went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that the situations in which we put people weren’t really all that risky at all.

Sure, whenever you’re paddling a canoe in white water, riding a mountain bike, or abseiling off a cliff, there are some risks. But we worked hard to minimise those risks, purchasing and maintaining over-the-top safety equipment, training staff, putting in place logistics programs to make sure we were always within an acceptable risk window.

To our clients, none of that mattered. As they stood on top of a cliff about to lower themselves down, as they floated across a dam on a raft made of barrels, bamboo and bits of string, or as they camped in the wilderness in the midst of a thunderstorm…the risk seemed very real.

And therein lies the value in doing what we did, and I wonder, the connection with leadership.

Even if the real risk was low, the perception of high risk made those situations valuable teaching moments. The experience of the participant in being pushed into a heightened state of fear or emotion was completely real – even if the risk was only perceived.

Even if leadership isn’t a real thing, or at least it’s hard to put a finger on, it’s the perception of leadership that inspires, equips, enables the follower to action.

Maybe reality and perception are two sides of the same coin.

The combination of good communication, of the power of encouragement, the capacity of good systems to release resources, the inspiration that comes from an amazing idea….perhaps all these little pieces of reality are experienced or perceived as leadership.

And that might explain why one person’s leadership is another person’s frustration.  Leadership is entirely in the eye of the beholder. It’s perceived rather than real.

Even if that makes sense (and I’m not sure it does) where does that leave the concept of specifically christian leadership?

Is it enough to say that there is an added dimension of Christ-likeness on behalf of the leader (or at least the perception of Christ-likeness)?  Is christian leadership that experience or perception that inspires the follower to join with God’s mission in the world? Or to seek to grow into deeper relationship with Christ? or is it the outcome that determines if leadership is christian leadership? If God is honoured, if “mission happens”, if people grow in faith…then maybe christian leadership has occurred.

These are just some of the elements I’m wrestling with as this fascinating exploration of leadership continues.

All of this, and the title of a book we were introduced to today (“You’re the Messiah, and I should know”) reminds me of one of the funny (and bang-on) scenes from classic Monty Python movie “The Life of Brian” – where we are reminded that leadership is experienced, rather than offered. I leave you with it to ponder….  (oh, and language warning…).

NB: This is the fifth in a serious of posts reflecting on leadership, written during a Religious Leadership course with Trinity Theological College

PS> If you’re interested in this notion of risk, I once reflected on it a little more deeply:  Here and again here.

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leadership 4: i have the power

First…a regression to my childhood. This:

This week, week four of contemplating leadership, the crux of our discussion was around the theme of power.

There are a bunch of questions around the interplay between power and leadership:

  • is power inherently negative? is it entirely about the capacity to deprive another?
  • can there be leadership without power?
  • is fear of power a fear of leadership itself?
  • is power the same as capacity to influence?
  • is influence a value-neutral replacement term for power?

It seems that so much of the exercise of leadership is about an interplay built around power.

Sometimes (Machiavelli style) it’s about wielding power as a weapon to instill fear.  Sometimes (as we in the church like to proudly proclaim) it’s about empowering the powerless.

Sometimes power and its impact is obvious, known by both sides of an exchange. But sometimes it’s hidden, not acknowledged or realised by one party or the other.

A few years ago I was a new arrival in a leadership role in a challenging context. There had been conflict in the organisation before I arrived, and the situation was anything but clear. I figured that as a newcomer, I could perhaps dance along the fence separating the parties maybe doing some good, maybe contributing to a restoration of relationship.

I met with the wounded party, who from their perspective had been dealt with unjustly and harshly over a long period of time.  I tried to dance that dance, to steer clear of involvement in the conflict and look to a new relationship.  Nothing worked.

Over a long period of time, and several tense conversations, my colleague helped me realise the power imbalance at play in my attempt. No matter that I was new on the scene, I wore the badge of office, I was the face of the same establishment that had committed this perceived injustice, I was powerful, even if I didn’t know it, or feel it (or want it). That was a good lesson to learn.  It was a reminder too, that there is sometimes power that is positional, or institutional, other times personal (maybe even charistmatic). What other kinds of power can you identify?

The conversation in class this week got me wondering whether leadership can be understood as a kind of power-exchange.

In good, effective, just leadership, the exchange of power might mean the leader giving up some of their own power, in order to empower the follower.

Or maybe even a win-win situation is possible, in which the wise and gentle use of the leader’s power (after all, what is gentleness if not perfectly controlled strength?) not only builds the power of the follower, but maintains or even strengthens the power of the leader?

And I think we can all remember situations in which an abuse of power by the leader slams the follower, puts them in a position of utter powerlessness.

There is an exchange of power that goes on in the living out of leader/follower relationships.

Our other contemplation this week started with the oft-quoted phrase:

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (Lord Acton)

Lord Acton borrowed the idea from earlier authors – but it’s his wording that has stood the test of time. What is less commonly quoted is the phrase that follows in his letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton (from which the quote is drawn). Acton went on to say:

Great men are almost always bad men.

That is quite a declaration.  “Great men are almost always bad men”, and if it’s the power that corrupts, then I guess the question is whether they are bad at first, or become bad  through their experience of exercising (or exchanging or receiving) power).

Maybe it’s a little too naive, but I truly hope this isn’t a genuine reflection on the human spirit and condition.

I wonder if maybe power amplifies the underlying characteristic.

If I’m nasty, rude or arrogant, then power has the potential to amplify that nastyness, rudeness or arrogance.

On the other hand, if I’m compassionate, thoughtful and creative….maybe power can amplify those positives?

Perhaps where this theory runs into difficulty is in thinking about the kind of person who is more likely to seek after power, to gather power together, who aims to grow their own power even if at the expense of another.  If that same power then amplifies that hunger…well, I guess you can see where that notion ends up.

I’m a long way from sorting thoughts on power and leadership into anything like a coherent understanding (as you can tell!), but there’s no question in my mind that the exercise and exchange of power (whether in a positive or negative sense) is one of the critical ingredients in understanding and exercising leadership.

NB: This is the fourth in a serious of posts reflecting on leadership, written during a Religious Leadership course with Trinity Theological College

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leadership #3: following the leader

Over the last couple of weeks in our leadership class, we’ve been mainly focused on two questions of leadership:

  • What is leadership?
  • Who leads?

Those conversations took us in some interesting directions, but today we found an entirely different tangent to pursue.

Today we talked about followers.

Today we wondered if leadership is actually something that is offered by erstwhile leaders at all, or rather whether it’s something that is sought, recognised, and even bestowed by a group of followers.

We talked about the little known notion of ‘followership’.

When all the attention in our talk about the future is on seeking a higher quality of leadership, finding new leadership theories, developing the leaders within our community, or bringing in wildly brilliant leaders from outside….the theory of followership suggests that we perhaps ought to be focusing our attention elsewhere.

The success of any enterprise, or organisation is largely attributable to the quality of the followers, the community of people who identify as “we” and who collectively seek after common goals. The leader might help to organise and equip, and even to recognise the vision and purpose that is hidden within the group of followers….but it’s the followers that matter most.

Or so my understanding of the theory goes.

And to be truthful, it kind of rings true. It’s hard to be a great leader on your own. In fact there’s no leadership in action at all if its not recognised as such by a group of followers.

Somehow in our world, we’ve managed to bestow negative connotations on the word follower. Say it out loud. Let it roll off your tongue. Follower. It’s hard to say without thinking of sheep, of uncritical, unthinking flock. Followers bad. Leaders good.

The truth could hardly be more different. And as a Christian, I should know that. Jesus didn’t ask us to be unthinking, uncritical, automatons. Sheep-like followers.

Jesus did call us to follow, but in a sense to follow with the best of who we are. To bring all our giftedness, all our talent, all our capacity to reason, to think, to analyse, to critique and to act. To join with God’s purposes for the world with all that we are.

In that light the famous question “what would Jesus do?” is the wrong question. It could be construed as the question of a sheep-like follower. Perhaps the better question (though a little less sexy and not quite as neat) is to say “as one called to bring all I have to follow Jesus, what should I do?”

I’m patenting that and having bracelets made up. “AOCTBAIHTFJWSID”. They’re going to be big sellers.

The question of course, for those thinking about what leadership means, is what to do with this notion of followership. I think there are a few clues, a few places to start:

1. Recognise that within the group or community there is an astonishing capacity, a broad range of gifts and skills, and the potential to transform the world (or at least that part of it to which we have access).

2. Recognise that within the group or community there is (either overtly or tucked away) a vision – a sense of who we want to be, what we want to achieve, how we want our (collective) life to feel and look.

3. The task of the leader is to recognise what’s there and help give expression to it, to sharpen it, to identify as one with the community, to want and work for the community at its very, very best – and to find ways of organising, resourcing and encouraging to release that best within it.

4. The task of the leader is to love followers. Love them.

Maybe it’s time to reclaim the word followers. Followers rock. Followers are the future. Followers (and I’m not even joking a little bit) will save the world.

NB: This is the third in a serious of posts reflecting on leadership, written during a Religious Leadership course with Trinity Theological College

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leadership #2: the space in-between

  • Does leadership exist, kind of like an entity or a thing in its own right?
  • Does leadership have to be embodied, in the form of a person?
  • Are leaders born or trained?
  • From where does a charismatic leader acquire their power?

So many good and interesting questions at the heart of this week’s second session exploring leadership in the church (with Trinity Theological College).  In these early weeks we’re mostly concentrating on addressing the questions “what is leadership” and “who leads” (you’ll no doubt notice the intentional use of the term ‘addressing’ there, and not ‘answering’!).

What emerged for me in yesterday’s conversations was a reminder that leadership is never independent of it’s context – and that context includes time, place, the leader/s, the followers, the situation or issues at hand.

And so in one time/place/context a particular kind of leadership might be significant, and at another time/place/context something quite different might emerge.

I was reminded of a story from my own experience.

In what sometimes seems like a past life I worked in outdoor education, helping young people discover answers to questions such as “who am I?” and learn team and life skills. Early on in this experience I was out on a program with a group of about 15 young students, as part of a larger camp with a number of other groups. We had shared a fairly good week, unpacking lots of issues and exploring the beautiful environment around Lake Moogerah, climbing, paddling, walking and playing. But I was captured by the approach of one of the other group leaders – a guy who was as intense as I am ‘gentle’, as loud as I am quiet, as crazy as I am sensible, as confident as I am anxiety-ridden.  We were polar opposites in the way we led our respective groups and his group was without question the ‘fun’ group to be in – his young people were having a wild old time. I found myself sinking into despair, feeling sorry for myself, sure and certain that I could never lead them in the way that Tim did with his group, knowing for sure that I was not cut out for leadership in outdoor education because I just don’t have those characteristics.

The poor kids in my group just totally missed out compared to those in the other group.

In the midst of my navel-gazing woe-is-me moment, and as I watched Tim yet again lead some hilarious and wildly successful interaction, the school teacher who had been co-assigned to my group wandered over sat down next to me.  His next words changed my perspective on leadership instantly, and have stayed with me ever since.  “You know Scott,” he said as we watched this inspiring leader at work, “I am so glad that our group had you and not Tim as our leader.  Don’t get me wrong, he is great, but I know the kids in our group well, and they just wouldn’t have handled his approach. Your gentleness and quiet confidence have been just what our group needed and I want to thank you for it.”

Naturally I didn’t point out that quietness wasn’t really confidence as much as it was abject terror, but his point was (and remains) well made.

Leadership looks different at different times and places. And it looks different for different people.  Leadership exists in the interaction, the interplay between leader and follower. It is inevitably shaped by the characteristics of the leader, by the nature of the follower, by the circumstance of their interaction.

Leadership happens in the space in-between.

There is a theory of leadership called “Great Man Theory” (let’s call it “Great Leader Theory”…accepting the term came from an age long ago, and we’ve learned a lot since then) that suggests leadership is confined to a few amazing people who change the world around them, who are event-makers on a grand scale. Following this line of thinking…leaders are born and not trained, it’s inherent within them. And those of us who are not Great Leaders? We’re consigned to lesser roles, to responding to the world rather than remaking it.  One does not ‘become’ a Great Leader – we either are, or are not.  At least that’s my rudimentary understanding of the theory.

Somewhere between this idea and the other extreme in which everybody is a leader (or at least everybody can be a leader), lies this notion that that there are many different types of people who offer leadership of different kinds to situations of different shape, and people of different nature.

In this picture, in this image of leadership as what happens in the space in-between, there is room even for the quiet, shy, gentle, anxious, sensible among us to offer leadership when the context suits.

Maybe there is even room for me. And for you.

NB: This is the second in a serious of posts reflecting on leadership, written during a Religious Leadership course with Trinity Theological College

NB #2: I remain genuinely impressed with Tim. He’s a phenomenal, insightful, genuine, imaginative leader. And hilarious. I’m still jealous. 😉

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confession: me and full liturgies…

I like words.

I like reading other people’s words, diving deeply into books and stories that bring a whole new world to life inside my mind.  Putting just the right combination of words together can unearth amazing insights, powerful challenges that move me to agree or disagree, or just enjoy the moment.

And so I find it surprising to have realised in recent years, that despite enjoying words, I find a great deal of disconnect when it comes to words in Christian worship.

I’ve grown up as part of the Uniting Church, and now work within it.  One of the common forms of regular worship in the Uniting Church is a full written liturgy – where the leader/minister speaks, and there’s a pre-determined response to be read by the congregation. Sometimes it is confession, sometimes praise, sometimes prayer, sometimes lament.  The whole service is printed, or projected and I simply follow along. I might be wrong, but it seems that the full written liturgy is even more common now than it was in my childhood – or maybe I was too busy not paying attention back then to notice what was going on.

Even the songs are scripted parts of the service, the words lovingly crafted, music prepared, all of us singing in unison.

So why? Why don’t I like liturgies that are rich, carefully prepared and in which there are wonderful words that paint pictures and tell stories? Why don’t I like liturgies in which I identify with the whole church in every time and place by sharing in common responses, in which I respond with my neighbour in the next pew with words of solidarity and common commitment?

As best I can tell, the answer is that in the liturgy, the words are not my words. The commitments are not my commitments. The confessions are not my confessions. The prayers are not my prayers.

They are other peoples thoughts, expressions, words and I find myself parroting them. Sometimes mindlessly, I’ll read from the service sheet, no idea what the words mean to the one who wrote them or what I’m saying aloud.

It’s far more a critique of my capacity to take the words, internalise them, agree and then participate, but it’s still there, this discomfort with other people’s words.

What’s the alternative? For me, for my capacity to encounter and respond to God in the gathered community of faith (surely the purpose of worship?) I need to be invited to bring my own words, bring my own experience, my own story. And I need to hear the story, the words, the experience of my neighbour as she encounters and responds to God….so I can agree, or disagree, support or encourage.

I need to be in a community that recognises that even though the words of the service might be shaped around thankfulness and gratitude, some of us might that day be experiencing broken-ness and pain. Or on days when we’ve predetermined to lament and cry-out, there might be some among us who are in the midst of a rich praise-worthy moment, a time of celebration that could be shared.

That sounds messy even as I write it. And it would be. it sounds like it limits the size of a gathering. And it would. It sounds like some people would be uncomfortable and laid bare. And they would.

The full written liturgy….feels like it stifles and binds my community, and me. It calls for a pre-determined response to and encounter with God. It points to Jesus…but stops me from responding to him.

Why? Maybe I’m a self-absorbed Gen X, wanting to tear down traditions and remake them in my own image. Maybe I’m not getting the point of sharing words with those sitting around me. Maybe I misunderstand worship entirely. All of these are possible, even probable.

Whatever the cause…the outcome remains. I don’t like full liturgy.

And that makes worship difficult when that’s what is on offer.