{"id":14020,"date":"2017-09-14T12:59:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T19:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=14020"},"modified":"2017-09-14T12:59:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T19:59:35","slug":"adaptive-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/adaptive-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Adaptive Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Rise and Fall of Apartheid<\/em>, David Welsh offers a comprehensive and balanced history of South African politics in the 20th<\/sup> century. While I had some idea of the causes and challenges related to apartheid, I had not realized how complex the issues had been. Nelson Mandela is rightfully portrayed as a hero who makes some moral and political missteps in the process. At the same time De Klerk is also shown to be an integral, though flawed, player in the reform movement. I was captivated by the careful dance between these two leaders, and the lessons I can learn from how they navigated this unknown territory to a relatively peaceful end.<\/p>\n

Welsh foreshadows the critical piece that good leadership would play, writing, \u201cQuality of leadership, including the ability to inspire trust in one\u2019s followers and to take them into uncharted territory, would prove crucial factors when South Africa\u2019s transition reached its crucial phase in the 1990s\u201d (39). Indeed, leadership into an unknown future is particularly challenging. In his book Canoeing the Mountains<\/em>, Tod Bolsinger writes about the need for \u201cadaptive leadership\u201d when moving into a future that looks nothing like the past. According to Bolsinger, one of the keys to adaptive leadership is \u201cdisappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb\u201d (Bolsinger, 123).<\/p>\n

I think that we see both De Klerk and Mandela carefully doing this very thing\u2014disappointing their own people at rates they could absorb. De Klerk, when elected, was considered a solid conservative who wouldn\u2019t make much a difference with apartheid. But history shows that he had plans for reform from the beginning. Some might argue that that had had a hidden agenda, but in reality, De Klerk was simply figuring out how to bring people along on a journey towards a destination that was not only needed by inevitable, even if it was not destination they desired. He explains his process in retrospect, saying, \u201cI was often criticized\u2026for not racing ahead in pursuit of reform. Had I done so I would have alienated key players and important constituencies\u201d (345).\u00a0 There is wisdom in navigating change, even change as needed as important as abolishing apartheid, at a pace that allows followers to adjust and adapt.<\/p>\n

Mandela does the same thing. There were those in the ANC that wanted a vengeful take-over. They were filled with hate and the idea of \u201cone nation\u201d felt like an unwarranted concession to their long-time oppressors. Mandela met secretly with the members of the NP because there were those in the ANC who believed that the only point of negotiation was to discuss the \u201cgovernment\u2019s terms of surrender and the mechanics of transferring power\u201d (367). The reality that Mandela was working towards a peaceful way forward would be \u201cinterpreted by more insurrection-minded followers as \u2018betrayal\u2019 or \u2018selling out\u2019\u201d (364). He too, was disappointing some of his people, particularly those who would have preferred a communist regime over a democratic one. But not so much that they sought out another leader. In fact, the vast majority of the ANC continued to follow Mandela\u2019s lead and trust his process.<\/p>\n

In the end, Welsh concludes, \u201cMandela and De Klerk went far out on a limb, well ahead of their followers, to persuade them that negotiation was the only realistic option\u201d (375). Both leaders were risking their reputations and their power by moving towards the middle when their constituents were polarized. \u00a0The polarization was deeply rooted in the destructive and divisive power of fear. The Africans had suffered under years of mistreatment and discrimination, and their fear was that if they settled for anything other than complete and total political domination they would not be truly free. The Afrikaans were a decided racial minority, and their fear was that if they yielded any bit of their power they would be mistreated and dominated by those they had long oppressed. With this in mind, it is even more impressive to me that Mandela and De Klerk\u2014ultimately political opponents\u2014worked together to make democracy possible.<\/p>\n

I was also struck by how the leaders\u2019 opinions about each other were changed after they met, and how despite their lasting differences, there was a level of mutual respect. \u201cMandela realised that De Klerk was the only white leader who could take the white population out of the corner into which apartheid had painted them; and De Klerk realised that Mandela\u2019s towering authority would be vital to keeping the volatility of the masses within bounds\u2026.\u201d (381).<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t help but notice some eerie similarities between the rise of apartheid and some of the current trends in the United States. From Hertzog\u2019s slogan, \u201cSouth Africa First\u201d to the restrictions on immigration, to the paternalistic undertones in all of the legislation leading up to the pass laws and labour laws, I was struck by how the NP leaders played on people\u2019s fears. Fear of not having jobs, land, or security. I spent some time in the States following Trump\u2019s election, and found that fear was also being spouted on all fronts, often being used as a basis for political action.<\/p>\n

This book gave me pause.<\/p>\n

What would adaptive leadership in the American church look like at this time? And how might we, as church leaders, need to \u201cdisappoint our followers at a rate they can absorb?\u201d Immediately following the elections, the Martin Luther King Community Center in Spokane, WA was covered with racist, hate-filled graffiti. The lead pastor of our sending church was on the scene the next day, helping with the clean-up. He didn\u2019t publicize this himself, but as he is the pastor of the largest church in town, he ended up getting interviewed by the local news, who came to report on the crime. When I saw the news report on FaceBook, I was proud of him, so I sent an email to thank and encourage him, only to find that he had been criticized by certain church members for \u201cgetting political.\u201d He is disappointing some of his followers, and he will continue to do so. How about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, David Welsh offers a comprehensive and balanced history of South African politics in the 20th century. While I had some idea of the causes and challenges related to apartheid, I had not realized how complex the issues had been. Nelson Mandela is rightfully portrayed as a hero who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[980],"class_list":["post-14020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-david-welsh","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14020"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14093,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14020\/revisions\/14093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}