Foundations for Transformational Leadership
I find myself at a place where the leadership development and training of the past does not fit how I am wired as a person. I find myself “caught” between two worlds, the world of my past that taught leadership ala Hybels, Maxwell, Drucker, (you name the leadership gurus of the 90’s) and a voice coming from inside and outside saying, “no” there is a different way of being a leader.
Professor Brad Smith of Bakke University taught me, “The leader is a steward of power – acquiring it, giving it away, using it for God’s purposes, growing it in relationship vs. transaction, but not hording and using it for selfish ends.” He also stated, “God has all the power.”1
The leadership styles I was exposed to for many years seemed to be more transactional than relational. The corporate CEO style of leadership2 does not fit for how I lead.
God is the Source of all Power
If God is the source of all power it would be only logical to find the way to tap God’s power. Here Henry Nouwen has been helpful to me,
“It is not enough for the priests and ministers of the future to be moral people, well trained, eager to help their fellow humans, and able to respond creatively to the burning issues of their time. All of that is very valuable and important, but it is not the heart of Christian leadership. The central question is, are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God's presence, to listen to God's voice, to look at God's beauty, to touch God's incarnate Word, and to taste fully God's infinite goodness?”3
I believe from the depth of my being, that any "leadership" power I acquire comes from God. The most foundational piece of my life is based on my relationship with God. I learned from a very young age that my connection to God was the way of life, literally life-saving to me. It is how I am created to relate in every way. I know when my connection with God is void because of laziness, busyness, life etc. I am not able to respond well to the issues of my everyday life.
Another source that has been helpful in to me in shaping leadership is the folks from the Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. Elizabeth O’Connor in her book4 describing the structure of mission groups from the Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. teaches the concept of “journey inward, journey outward.” The essence being, in order to be faithful to one’s calling, you must journey inward relating to God, becoming self aware as you spend time with God and then journey outward, finding your particular call or place of pain in the world God would invite you to co-labor with Him to respond to. This is a simplistic way of translating the concept but it captures for me a foundational piece in leadership. Relationship with God has to be real. It has to find expression, someone said, that many Christians live as practical atheists, I have to find my life in God in order to lead.
Understanding Power
“When you don’t have power you talk about it a lot,”5 This rings true to me. I wrestle with understanding how much power I have in the area of leadership and how it is perceived by others. This is an area I need to understand. Because of self-esteem issues, I know that I have chosen blinders in this area. I am too afraid I might “think too highly of myself” and abuse the power I have. This is not healthy for me or for leadership. It would be more honest to evaluate and assess the areas of personal power I have in all aspects of my life. I need to be self-aware of the concept of power in the following areas:
- Temperament: confidence, personality, relational, expertise.
- Character: moral, discipline.
- Spiritual: faith, grace.
- Age – young or old.
- Reputation, family, experiences.
- Sources of organizational power
- People, money, product, resources.
- Position, partners.
- Sources of cultural power
- “white & male privilege”6
Sidebar on Power
As a woman navigating leadership in the church (not the church I serve so much as the wider church) my experience has been another of being “caught” between two worlds. I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church where I didn’t question the issue of leadership. The way a woman attained leadership in my view was to become a nun. Having left the RC at the age of eighteen, my next church experience was in a Pentecostal/Evangelical church where male and female leadership was modeled. Women were ordained and that was my experience up until the last five years at which time I began to bump into people, men and women who believed it unbiblical to ordain women. While I believe this falls under an issue of justice, I also have learned to restrain from pugnacious arguments on this issue. In some ways, restraint has been necessary to get a hearing, but at other times, because to me, it is an issue of justice, I have used my power to speak up in downright hostile environments.
Part of the issue of power and understanding power is being self-aware enough to know when you are reacting and when you need to stand for what’s true. These are not easy issues, especially when you have felt the injustice of someone judging and categorizing you because of your gender.
Acquiring Power
Mother Teresa is one of the great examples of a Transformational Leader. She is someone who acquired power for the sake of people that were literally dying in the streets. Being aware that power, like money is a currency. Mother Teresa accessed power from the world stage for the cause of the poorest of the poor and dying. Mother Teresa remained committed to her call and vocation until the day she died.7 Some of the issues I wrestle with and am trying to understand are pretty basic, such as: what am I still lacking to accomplish what I am called to do? This is the driving force behind my becoming a DMin student. Through this program I seek to identify what is lacking in my leadership style. I want to develop these areas and grow to the next level of leading thus accomplishing my particular call.
Secondly, how do I/we use strategy as part of discernment? In other words how do we merge the corporate model of strategic planning, goals, and outcomes with the seemingly more organic model of prayer and a more contemplative approach to ministry?8 This is part of our wrestle as a faith community as well as my own wrestle in leadership. I think the answer is both/and. This is our experiment for now.
Who Are You?
The best gift in the area of leadership I have ever received is when someone I look up to and admire as a gifted leader gave me permission to be myself. He told me to quit trying to fit into the CEO mold and be myself.9 Reflective Leadership has this at the core, realizing that we are all wired in different ways. Again, self-awareness plays a big role here.
I get energy and strength when I go on a silent retreat,10 my batteries get recharged. I know strong leaders who would no more get strength or inspiration from a silent retreat than they would from getting a tooth pulled. I believe it is a myth that we all “should” use the same disciplines, practices and environments to keep our connection to God, the source of all power fresh. I am realizing that reflective leadership gives the “other” room to be themselves. A leader who can not only model, but live out embracing and valuing the difference in others is in great demand today as the culture so rapidly changes.
In the book, Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, chapter seven is all about the character of a leader.11 The basic three ingredients in the character of a leader the author’s see are: being present to oneself and to others, being authentic, and being self-aware.12 Another way of saying this is that the process of becoming a leader is the process of becoming a fully integrated human being. I have seen this point lacking in much of my church experience of the last twenty years. The churches I have been involved in during that time did not model an integrated view of being human. Instead a way of being “spiritual” was modeled which looked like how well you could pray, how “present” the Holy Spirit was when you prayed, how well you were able to “move” in spiritual gifts, etc. I am stilled involved and embrace the Charismatic tradition, and as much as I embrace this tradition, I have witnessed what can happen in a congregation with such a high regard for and emphasis on the “visible manifestation” of the Spirit as a sign of spiritual maturity. This kind of emphasis left lacking an integrated way of being truly human. People began to hide their weaknesses and struggles for fear they would be viewed “unspiritual.” The concept of a leader being aware of others was also discussed in Brad Smith’s lecture at Bakke Graduate University.13 Brad spoke about Calling-based Leadership. Here we understand that sometimes (especially as we get older) that God has called each of us uniquely and we can celebrate other’s gifts and talents. Calling-based Leadership helps us to recognize multiplicity of gifts. Brad asserts that leaders always have the trait of “vision.” The different types of leaders mentioned were:
- Creative Ideas – know as the Visionary
- Creative developer – the one’s who decide what creative idea is worth developing a pilot for.
- Developer – take the pilot to the potential by tweaking.
- Refiner – the leaders who then create or produce and develop the policies and procedures.
- Maintainer – the leaders that play it out for the long term life span.14
In each of the leaders listed above, the trait of “vision” is needed for each stage of the life span of the idea to fully live out it intended objective. When leaders are self aware and other aware enough to see what kind of Calling-base leader they are the church then is truly able to function like the “body” metaphor where each part is important to the whole.
Leading from the Margins
In his excellent book, Good To Great, Jim Collins affirms that not all leaders of “great” companies are the typical professional CEO type. In fact he makes the stunning observation: “Larger-than-life, celebrity leaders…are negatively correlated with taking a company from good to great.”15
He affirms another type of leader he calls the Level 5 Leader.16 This is a leader who leads with the paradoxical blend of humility and professional will.
“We were surprised, really shocked to discover the type of leadership required for turning a good company into a great one. Compared to high- profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good to great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self- effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy- these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar.”17
The leaders he studied that fell into this category were not high powered, charismatic CEO types. They were humble, often non-charismatic but very focused and disciplined. This leader can form a team of people around them that have strengths and talents that are needed to make the company successful. The leader is not afraid of team members upstaging them, instead they know who to put in what place as the company grows.
“Leaders create experiences that cause people to take action.”18 I like this statement. It is another aspect of leadership that is helpful in trying to live out faithfully joining in God’s mission to restore and renew creation. The following is a brief look at a progression that is also circular in movement:
Awareness - Leaders create awareness by providing information. Providing information on a need for justice, putting things to rights or some other area of co-laboring with God to bring healing and shalom to His creation. It can be as small as providing a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty to accessing seats of power in government to change unjust laws. Whatever the issue might be, awareness leads to the need for information to create understanding.
Understanding - One of the best ways to get understanding is by telling stories. Jesus was an expert at telling stories to get his listeners to not only hear but think and understand. The parables and other stories of what the Kingdom of God is like were told in a way that the hearer had to think and often ask questions to understand what Jesus was meaning. Jesus often told stories to get his point through not just on an intellectual lever but often touching the hearer’s emotions as well. Out of this kind of understanding the hearer then will experience conviction. Think of what is called “The Good Samaritan” the expert in the Law asked Jesus a question. Jesus tells the story to illustrate for him a better understanding of “who was his neighbor” by the end of the story the man had an understanding of how Jesus thought of “neighbor.” I would imagine this man, even though the Bible doesn’t record this, felt some level of conviction on how he was taught to view the Samaritans and contrasting that with Jesus now calling the Samaritan man his neighbor.
Conviction - My heart tells me that now that I have some understanding I need to do something. Many people stop here. I have felt a tug or nudge in my heart toward an area of need. Once again, a transformational leader does not stop here, but creates experiences that cause people to now actually “take action.” Many people would take action if they only had someone to tell them what to do. I don’t believe everyone is a “visionary” leader in the sense that they are entrepreneurial. Many people are wired differently. They need concrete ways of being able to take action. I think about Mother Teresa again. She saw a need, began to organically at first organize the way to go about action. As she did, she modeled for others what it meant to love and be present to the poorest of the poor. As others watched her and heard her stories, they too wanted to join and be a part of the action of loving and being present with the sick and dying. These were people who would not necessarily have taken the path of the Sisters of Charity had there not been a leader showing them how to take action.
Action - I now “do” something. Taking action leads to affirmation and personal growth. In doing something that will make a difference we often take away from that activity a deep sense of what it means to co-labor with Jesus. Somehow in the encounters of “doing good” I am changed. Here is a quote from Lauren Winner that is a helpful description of what I am trying to convey:
“Most good and holy work (like praying and being attentive and even marching for justice or serving up chili at the soup kitchen) is sometimes tedious, but these tasks are burning away our old selves and ushering in the persons God has created us to be.”19
Affirmation - I need to know that what I did was the right thing or in the very least I am affirmed for “trying.” Now I tell others. This is one way that Incarnational Leadership happens. Others get the story from me or another. We share our common experiences which lead to affirmation. Then the awareness begins again.20
Leading People to Follow Someone Else
Another quote I often reflect on is from Todd Hunter, former Director of Vineyard USA and current Director of Alpha USA. “How do we lead in such a way that the people we serve follow someone else?”21 I don’t think that is an exact quote, but you get the idea. Ultimately, we are serving/leading people to follow God and take part in God’s mission in the world. Reflecting on this thought make it is hard to think in terms of using people (even if we do not acknowledge that is what we are doing) to further our vision or goals.
Being present with people, serving people, embracing people, being Spirit led, accepting our humanity and embracing the leadership vacuum are traits that help leaders to lead others to follow Jesus. It also provides the framework for Contextual Leadership.22 Contextual Leadership knows that God is already at work in the place you are called to serve. He is there before we ever show up. The first job of the Contextual Leader is to listen and see where God is rather than delivering our goods and services.
A great example of this happened on the day Ray Bakke took us to observe several faith-based organizations that were ministering to some need and bringing healing to the brokenness and pain around them.23 Being a native of Seattle and serving a congregation just outside of the Seattle city limits, observing the signs of the Kingdom throughout the city, seeing where God already is and working was eye opening to me. It gave me an imagination for observing where people could partner with God to bring strength and support to those vital ministries that are making a difference in my city.
An Incarnational Leader24 cultivates and environment where all in community are encouraged to find their lives and to give them away. Discernment within community I believe is very important. Creating an atmosphere where “attempts” and “risks’ are treated as the norm, where it is okay to fail and try again is not considered the way of leadership success in today’s highly competitive culture of success.
Transformational Leaders see Reality
“We in the American church are undergoing radical change and are in the midst of witnessing extreme cultural shifts.”25 Some of the authors take the reader through other times in history of like transitions and look back at how the church responded. Some of the authors gave hope and language for this time. Some call it “liminal space.”26 Liminal space being a threshold a zone neither in nor out that was coined by a Dutch anthropologist describing boys in adolescence, the growing up and becoming men. It is described as a zone or time when they are not a boy anymore but not a man yet either.
This is what many are calling the time the church is in currently. That the past way of being the church is fading but the new way of being the church has not quite come forth. This can cause confusion and conflict in many congregations especially those that have people living from the past and those that want the future to emerge in the same community. Leaders in this context need communication skills and the ability to guide and help people through times of what has been called “discontinuous change.”27
The concept as the church as a “missional community” has become the guiding image for me and is changing the way I see leadership. The local congregation viewing itself as missionaries to their own neighborhood and larger community has ramifications I had not seen before in all my twenty plus years of “doing” ministry. In my experience, missionaries went to Africa or China or somewhere outside of the U.S. This has been the common view of what being a missionary meant in my church affiliations. To be a successful missionary one studied the culture they would be serving in. They would learn the language, history, and the local customs of the people they went to serve. We now must view our own city as a mission field and doing so requires no less effort to understand our culture today in every town USA. Lesslie Newbigin, a missionary from the UK to India, upon returning to the UK found himself in what was once considered a Christian nation to be post-Christian.28 He stated it was harder to be a witness for the gospel in what was once a Christian nation than going to a country that had not heard the gospel. We find ourselves in much the same state in the U.S. This again, was the hypothesis of many of the required reading for this course. If this is so, we have a difficult challenge ahead of us. How to lead congregations to be as Newbigin states, the living, breathing expression of the gospel in a place.29 This is where we as leaders of a local church in the outskirts of Seattle, Washington have great opportunity as well as great challenge. One of the major challenges we wrestle with is helping our congregants view themselves as missionaries in their everyday life. To begin to view all of life as holy rather than the dualistic view of what is secular and what is sacred. An example would be for leaders to value and give visibility to the different professions within the church, i.e. the hospice worker, the nurses, the doctors, the teachers. The mothers that choose to stay home with their children, the couple raising a disabled child and so on.
Our default mode in the church is to make visible the big stories, like those going to another part of the world on a mission trip etc. I believe we have unintentionally given the congregation the message that what is valued is the “big” stories. There is also a place to bring to the front and honor how people live out their faith in their everyday, ordinary life. My friend and mentor, Jim Henderson has once again been enormously helpful here with a phrase he coined; Catch, Blame and Tell:
- Catch people doing the right thing.
- Blame them for it.
- Tell on them publicly for being successful at trying.30
We are in the process of incorporating the CBT interviews into our weekly worship gathering. Honoring the people that are often hidden but giving their life away while at work or at home is a way of beginning to teach people that God is in all of life.
My Personal Reflection
I am at a place in my own journey of faith and as a leader to wrestle with many leadership questions. Questions such as:
- What does it mean for the congregation to be the hermeneutic of the gospel?
- What would it look like if our forms of church life supported Christian discipleship and witness in our culture?
- How do we go about destroying the false dichotomy that exists in our churches between church and mission? Instead seeing the church as a mission rather than mission is something the church does.
- The gender issue. How do we as women lead in often a hostile environment within the church itself, without succumbing to bitterness and fighting evil with evil?
1 Brad Smith, “Six Perspectives” (lecture, Bakke Graduate University, Seattle, WA, January 9, 2006).
2 , 5.
3 , 29.30
4 , 20.
5 Unknown Source
6 Brad Smith, “Six Perspectives” January 9, 2006).
7 Mother Teresa: In the Name of God’s Poor (1997-USA-Docudrama/Religious Drama/Hagiography)
8 . 25/
9 Todd Hunter, former Director of Vineyard USA and currently Director of Alpha USA
10 , 98-99.
11 Roxburgh and Romanuk, Missional Leader, 125.
12 Ibid., 127.
13 Brad Smith, “Six Perspectives” January 9, 2006.
14 Ibid.
15 , 10.
16 Ibid., 12.
17 Ibid., 12-13.
18 Jim Henderson, “The Emerging Church” (lecture, Bakke Graduate University, Seattle, WA, January 18, 2006).
19 , 97.
20 John Savage, “Strategic Leadership Institute” (planning retreat, Vineyard Community Church, Shoreline, WA, April 6, 2006).
21 Todd Hunter, “Leadership Coaching Clinic” (lecture, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasedena, CA, October 2005).
22 Brad Smith ,“Six Perspectives” January 9, 2006.
23 Ray Bakke, “Global/Urban Perspectives” (Bakke Graduate University tour of non-profit agencies in Greater Seattle, WA, January 12, 2006).
24 Jon Sharpe, “Incarnational Leadership” (lecture, Bakke Graduate University, Seattle, WA, January 11, 2006).
25 , 3; , 14-16; , 3.
26 , 20-21.
27 , 6-9.
28 Wilbert R. Shenk, (Newbigin.net) "Lesslie Newbigin’s Contribution to the Theology of Mission", TransMission, Special Edition, 1998: 3-6.
29 , 227.
30 The congregation of Vineyard Community Church participates in CBT frequently at their Sunday Worship Gathering.
31 Miriam Adeney, “Global Leadership” (lecture, Bakke Graduate University, Seattle, WA, January 12, 2006).
32 , 60.
33 Ibid.
34 Unknown Author
35 Six Perspectives: 1. Transformational Leadership, 2. Incarnational Leadership, 3. Reflective Leadership, 4. Contextual Leadership, 5. Calling-Based Leadership, 6. Global Leadership (lectures from OVI, Bakke Graduate University, Seattle, WA, January 9-20, 2006). |
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