Here is the conclusion to yesterday's letter to a friend on leadership:
The more I ponder
it, the more I question whether “leadership” is a helpful subject, a healthy
term. I think, as I know you do, that the language we use is critical. Language
casts images – either the image of God or the images of man. We will either be
grounded in the Logos of God or the logoi of man. Where do we see an emphasis
on leadership in the Bible, the way we use the term “leadership” today? And why
don’t we have a historical body of teaching and writing explicitly on leadership?
What we have in
historical teaching and writing is integrated and holistic; this is what a king
should look like, this is what a priest or pastor should look like, this is
what a courageous and virtuous person should look like. This is why Chesterton
could argue that he learned, as an adult, that what he really needed to know
was taught to him as a boy, as a lad – in the nursery of his life. Fenelon
writes a story, Telemachus, to convey to the potential future king of
France what virtuous kingship looks like.
I may not be able
to put my finger quite on it, but I do think something is amiss with our
approach to “leadership”…and most certainly when the church imports utilitarian
thinking into its midst. A problem is, of course, that “leadership” sells books
and seminars and academic courses – we create monsters who enslave us. When we
make something a commodity, when we put a dollar sign on it, when we create
an industry out of it – then, even if its beginnings were commendable, we
worship a bronze serpent.
If we must use the
term “leadership”, then let us acknowledge that the leadership of the Bible is
cruciform and is not necessarily successful in the eyes of the church or of the
world. Let us insist that leadership not only embrace the Cross, but that it be
broken at the Cross. Let us be quick to affirm that Biblical leadership is just
as foolish as the Gospel, just as “weak” as the Gospel, just as countercultural
as the Gospel. Biblical leadership must be self-effacing so that the only Face
that matters will shine forth – the Face of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.
It seems to me
that leadership development is peripatetic in nature; we see this with Jesus
and associates, with Paul and associates, with Moses and Joshua…dare we say
with Elijah and Elisha? It also seems to me that leadership development is
primarily about “who we are” and not “what we do”. Princess Elizabeth knew who
she was when she spoke the above words to the Commonwealth and her life has
followed. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is focused on Moses’s
spiritual formation, his seeking the Face of God – it is a pilgrimage, a Way of
Life.
Leadership is
sacrificially sacramental. As Oswald Chambers wrote, we are called to be
“broken bread and poured out wine.” A “Christian” leader who doesn’t “get that”
isn’t a “Christian” leader. Wherever we are in life, we are called to be the
sacrificial Presence of Christ to others – if a “Christian” leader doesn’t get
that, then it isn’t “Christian” leadership.
Well…some Biblical
paradigms:
Matthew 8:5 – 13.
I’ve been teaching this passage for decades in various settings and no
one has ever correctly answered the question, “What did the centurion
see in Jesus?” The answer is always, in one form or another, “He saw that Jesus
had power. He saw that Jesus had authority.”
No one has ever
said, “He saw that Jesus was under authority, just as he was, and that’s
why he recognized that Jesus had authority – because Jesus was under
authority.”
Why don’t people
get this? Why can’t they read the passage as it is written? Because of our
notions of authority – we have an image of authority that is accountable to no
one, the idea of being under authority is antithetical to the American
way of thinking, including the thinking of most of the church.
True leaders are
under authority as a way of life; organizational, moral, ethical, God’s
Word, the Church, peers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Only a fool doesn’t
want to be under authority; I’ve been that fool more than once so I think I can
write about it.
Then we have
Matthew 20:20 – 28. This is our Way of Life. Whether we are with retail clerks,
children, the elderly, the rich, the poor, the powerful, or the disenfranchised
– this is our calling, our Way of Life. It is also a protection against ego and
the intoxication of position and recognition. Show me how a “leader” treats the
lowest person in an organization or community, and I’ll tell you about his or
her leadership.
John 13:1 – 16: A
secure leader washes the feet of his people. But let’s not miss, “He loved them
to the end.” Leadership without a passionate and sacrificing love for people is
simply not Christian leadership. We might include this in 1 Cor. 13, “If I lead
a church or organization to great successful heights, but have not love, I am
nothing.” If we are not teaching others how to love, then we are not teaching
leadership. (Also John 10:11).
1 Thessalonians 2:5
– 12: Why have I never seen this in a text on Christian leadership?
Ezra, Nehemiah,
Zechariah, Haggai, and others: The dynamics of collective leadership.
There are only two
books on “leadership” that I have kept on my shelf, one is The Making of a
Leader, by Robert Clinton; the other is A Failure of Nerve – Leadership
in the Age of the Quick Fix, by Edwin Friedman. The latter is a hard read
because of Friedman’s humanistic assumptions, lots of bones to pick through and
rocks to move away, but there are gems in it – among them the thought that
leaders are to be a Non-Anxious Presence for their people.
I like Clinton’s
Christian approach because it is holistic and formative and takes a long view
of life. I’ve used it in both business and Kingdom settings.
In conclusion, no
virtue, no leadership. Values are only as good as our feelings and pragmatic
priorities – virtue is woven into our souls.
We are in a
watershed in which all things are being shaken – Christ has something better
for us than clinging to flotsam and jetsam. Christian leadership includes a
very simple requirement, our lives – it will cost us our lives.
Can we say with
Paul, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen,
so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it
eternal glory.” (2 Timothy 2:10).
In deep love and
affection,
Bob
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