WCLS: John Burke

Making and maintaining good soil is essential if people are to grow.
1 Cor. 3:6-9 God causes the growth, we're responsible for the soil.
Are you willing to get your hands dirty by meeting people where they are?

Messy Leadership

1. Grace-giving Acceptance. If you find a Rembrandt covered in mud you wouldn't throw it away or even try to wipe it off. You'd take it to an expert who could clean it and make it good as new. We need to view people through God's eyes, not our own.
2. Authentic Confessing Community. Leaders have to lead in being authentic. We have to actually care about each other.
3. Stay Connected to Christ. "Apart from me you can do nothing." Stay connected, fruit happens.

WCLS: Gary Haugen

What is leadership that matters to God? It is leading in issues that matter to God. In other words, are Jesus and I interested in the same things?

2 Passions of God

1. The World (Jn. 3:16) How can hurting people believe God is good? The Church is the plan to make people believe that God is good.
2. Justice Biblical injustice is about the abuse of power to take from them the good things God has for them (i.e. life, liberty, dignity).

Leadership matters most when the cause seems hopeless, scary, and difficult.

Leadership when it seems hopeless.

• Refocus on where hope comes from.
• If God is passionate about getting it done than he is responsible for getting it done.

Leadership when it seems scary.

• Jesus did not come to make us safe, he came to make us brave.
• Too many of us are on the journey with Jesus but we're missing the adventure. We won't experience God there.

4 Leadership Choices

1. Choosing not to be safe.
2. Choosing deep spiritual health. (Not needed when it's safe and easy.)
3. Choose to pursue excellence.
4. Choose to seize the joy. (It should make us laugh that God uses people like us!)

WCLS (Willow Creek Leadership Summit): Bill Hybles

Much of the task of leadership is making decisions.
Part of what leaders must do is make tough decisions--it is not for the faint of heart.

4 Common decision making questions for Christian Leaders
1. Does the Bible speak to it?
2. What would smart advisors say?
3. What does PGE teach you? (Past Pain, Past Gains, Experiences)
4. Is the Holy Spirit prompting me?

Make trial decisions and see if they lead to peace or turmoil within.
If a decision turns out well, thank everyone who played a part in it. If it turns out poorly, blame only yourself.

Leadership Axioms: Short sayings that guide decision making and come from a synthesis of learning from the four questions above.

Some Leadership Axioms

• The best way to get rid of an enemy is to turn him into a friend. (Abraham Lincoln)
• Create movement for movement's sake.
• Promote a clash of ideas. (Colin Powell)
• Vision leaks. (Hybles)
• Get the right people around the table. (Hybles)
• Facts are your friends. (Hybles)
• When something feels funky, engage. (Hybles)

Leadership Paradigms--Part 2

Because the mechanistic model of leadership is so pervasive I have always assumed that that's just how things work. I had never questioned the paradigm. But recently I have been captured by a different paradigm of leadership, one I'll call an organic model (I know that is an overused buzzword and I'm not trying to join in the river of everything organic, but I didn't want to take the time to come up with something else right now). Instead of being akin to a machine, this model could better be thought of as a river--something fairly stable, but capable of both rapid and gradual change. In the words of Margaret Wheatley, a river doesn't care so much what it looks like as it does about flowing. A few characteristics of this leadership paradigm.

1. Leadership based in spiritual authority: Instead of having leadership that originates in a position, leadership is gained naturally as people follow someone. Thus, authority in this paradigm is based on influence. We have all been around people who were leaders whether they were officially recognized as leaders or not. There is a woman at my current church named D who has no official position but has tremendous influence. She has it because of her integrity, concern for others, spiritual maturity, honesty, and knowledge. She has spiritual authority, not institutional authority. I would contend this type of leadership is much more biblical.

2. Leadership is more about preparation than planning: The problem with strategic planning is that we plan based on the present--a present that will no longer exist by the time our plan is scheduled to bloom. A plan from today meant to transform tomorrow cannot work in a rapidly changing world. The other problem with planning is that it allows us to figure out what we will do so that our actions don't have to stem from who we are. In order to react and lead faithfully we must be people of integrity who will naturally make godly decisions, even when we can't plan what we will do. This fits with the biblical theme of actions flowing from the heart.

3. Disequilibrium and change are welcome: In most organizations it is believed that a state of equilibrium and stability is ideal. Even if we believe this has worked in the past there are significant problems with it now because of how quickly our world changes. Nothing can be counted on to remain the same from month to month or even day to day. Disequilibrium and change are a certainty in our world, so when our paradigm of leadership views them as things to be averted rather than embracing and working with them, failure of some kind will likely result. Working toward stability can also stifle creativity within a people. "When leaders strive for equilibrium and stability by imposing control, constricting people's freedom and inhibiting local change, they only create the conditions that threaten the organization's survival." (Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science)

To keep this from getting even longer I will just list a few other features of organic leadership without describing them--1) The more people who have access to information, the more healthy the system will be 2) Freedom is essential 3) Change doesn't have to be controlled.

I'll close with one more quote from Leadership and the New Science that made me excited about leadership. "Organizations [including the church] lack this kind of faith, faith that they can accomplish their purposes in varied ways and that they do best when they focus on intent and vision, letting forms emerge and disappear."

Leadership Paradigms--Part One

When approaching leadership it is important to start with a biblical perspective. Leaders should be servants of those they are leading. They should pursue Christ-likeness to the point they are able to say, “follow me as I follow Christ.” Christian leaders should be characterized by integrity, humility, perseverance, selflessness, servanthood, and courage. (Matt. 20:24-28; Titus 1:5-9; James 1:2-5 to name just a few)

But these biblical values can be placed, at least to some extent, on different paradigms of leadership. In the next two posts I want to focus on two in particular—the two that are most relevant for our time. In this post I will concentrate on the paradigm of leadership I have experienced most, both in the church and outside it. It is pervasive in almost every corner of our Western world where leadership is exercised. It has a number of things that characterize it.

First, this paradigm recognizes leaders through the conferring of a position. A pastor is hired by a church and immediately has authority over people and programs. You have a problem at a store so you ask for the manager. A person is given a title and the authority of leadership comes with it. We identify leaders by their positions.

Second, this paradigm of leadership is about control. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a dispersal of tasks. Leaders can allow (or command) others to do things, but notice I just had to write that they allow others do things. They decide who gets to do what, when they do it, and how they do it. They can give up some of this control if they choose to, but it is theirs if they want it.

Third, it is largely individualized. While leaders may speak to others about their plans or decision-making, the ramifications of a decision come back to them alone. Take coaching as an example. When a team does well the head coach is given credit. When they lose he loses his job. There are assistant coaches and even players who have some input into what happens (determined by how much say the head coach wants to give them), but ultimately the head coach is held responsible for failure and lauded for victory.

Finally, in this paradigm, leaders work in ways that are structured and measurable. Good leaders make long-range plans. They produce charts and reports to detail progress. In any leadership position I have had there has been an expectation of setting measurable goals for a specific period of time. These were meant to be an objective way of deciding how well I was leading.

This leadership paradigm flows out of a mechanistic worldview. Actions have predictable outcomes. If all the pieces are put together right an organization will hum. It will be a well-oiled machine. Parts are interchangeable; it is the processes and structures that determine success or failure. The whole is the sum of the parts. Roles and functions must be clearly defined so things can run properly. Organization is seen as machine and people are parts.