It's still pretty common across industries for leaders to think of themselves as being "in charge." The last US president, for example, described himself as "The Decider."
No where is this view of leadership more common than in church circles. In fact, if you Google church leadership you get bombarded by site after site like this one from a church consulting group called church leadership.org that describes leadership as "the duty and call of the person who is in charge to take charge with courage and character, and to risk leading his/her people where they need to go and how they need to be led."
Does anybody else out there feel like throwing up just a little?
This top-down approach to leadership sucks the life out of people. But it is typical of the consumable approach to life and work that characterizes the modern industrial age: The guy in charge of the assembly line tells everybody else what to do.
Well, guess what? Nobody really wants to be told what to do, anymore. Plus, we all know the "guy in charge" doesn't know what he's doing. How could he?! Or she. The world around us is changing faster than the bullet that is speeding for the heart of this broken leadership model. And the issues we face are more complex than any one person – or even a roomful of really smart people – can fix. (Just ask the beleaguered leaders and engineers at BP, for whom nothing seems to be going right.)
The good news is, a lot of us are making the shift to a new approach to leadership. Some leaders and bloggers like Christian publisher Michael Hyatt are calling it Leadership 2.0, which he describes as leadership that:
- Embraces change.
- Demonstrates transparency.
- Celebrates dialogue.
- Employs collaboration.
- Practices sharing.
- Welcomes engagement.
- Builds community.
This is helpful stuff. We just can't figure out why so many church leaders are hung up on an old model that is more Henry Ford than Jesus. And it's great to hear somebody like Hyatt suggesting a new way.
In other parts of the leadership universe, you'll hear people these days talking about open source leadership and wiki-leadership. Whatever you call it, the kind of leadership that is committed to using participative processes and works to create a collaborative culture is at the heart of the Renewable Organization.
Renewable leaders in the emerging future will realize their job isn't to tell everybody else what to do. They'll see the importance of asking purposeful questions, rather than pretending like they have all the answers. They'll know they need everybody at the table, working (playfully!) with them to meet the challenges the face. And they'll understand that their number one job is to recognize, tap into, and unleash the gifts, passion, energy, and intelligence of those they have been called to work with and serve beside.
By the way, in yesterday's Fast Company, blogger Ariel Schwartz invited readers to submit their ideas for plugging the hole in the gulf. The responses have been pouring in just about as fast as the oil BP can't seem to prevent from gushing. Are they all brilliant? Of course not. Not every idea in a brainstorming session is. But the more ideas you generate the more likely it is that something important and new will emerge. Imagine a national brainstorming session to solve this problem! Imagine all the best minds from every field, working together online, generating ideas, building on one another's best thinking, moving toward solutions no one person or small group would ever think of on their own. Do you think BP's leaders ever considered an open source approach to fixing this mess? Most likely not.
Too bad.
Church leaders!
You might like our little booklet 19 Or More Ideas For Using Participative Processes from our Renewable Practices for Faith-Based Groups Series.
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