\u201cAre you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?\u201d[1] John, who had proclaimed that Jesus was the Lamb of God, in a dark moment asked, \u201cAre you the Messiah, or should we keep looking?\u201d Human propensity through the ages has been to give agency to a leader who can solve our current dilemma. History is filled with examples of the exchange of power for followership when there is a hope-filled vision for the future. It is the effects and long term outcomes of this power that Dennis Tourish focuses on in his work, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership. <\/p>\n
Transformational leadership has often been described as a person with distinct characteristics and abilities to influence and move a group toward a stated vision usually fueled by a leader\u2019s ambition. Much has been written about organizational mission, vision and values, and the styles and habits of effective leaders who create them. Tourish courageously uses the process of cult making to show the dangers of this \u201cLone Ranger\u201d type whether servant oriented or narcissistic. He makes clear connections between these cult prophets and other organizational leaders with the nuances, motivations and tendencies of each. His work is well researched and iconoclastic in approach.<\/p>\n
Tourish goes against all conventional wisdom of leadership circles propagated in the last forty years when he defines an approach to leadership theory and practices \u201cwhich have an emancipatory intent\u201d thereby placing \u201cmore stress on the promotion of dissent, difference and the facilitation of alternative viewpoints than the achievement of consensus or the promotion of an organizational view wholly originating in the perspectives and values of formal leaders. In turn, followership is conceived in terms of differentiation and alternative positioning, while leadership is seen as those practices that facilitate such creative expression.\u201d[2] <\/p>\n
How are these kinds of leaders and followers formed? In adult development a critical aspect of differentiation is personal authority. In adults, if personal authority remains outside of self then we live in a socialized mindset prone to group think and continually hunting a messiah in human form. Tourish puts forth a model that requires personal authority from within. It requires people who have developed in maturity to at least what Robert Keegan defines as a self authoring mind and at best, a self transforming mind:<\/p>\n
* \t\tStage 1\u200a\u2014\u200aImpulsive mind (early childhood)
\n* \t\tStage 2\u200a\u2014\u200aImperial mind (adolescence, 6% of adult population)
\n* \t\tStage 3\u200a\u2014\u200aSocialized mind (58% of the adult population)
\n* \t\tStage 4\u200a\u2014\u200aSelf-Authoring mind (35% of the adult population)
\n* \t\tStage 5\u200a\u2014\u200aSelf-Transforming mind (1% of the adult population)[3]<\/p>\n
Self-transformed minds no longer need others to confirm their views and they are able to genuinely engage others\u2019 contribution, dissent and worldview. These are people who lead civil engagement and dialogue well, facilitate healthy debate and offer feedback both positive and negative. It requires leaders who listen even more closely to the negative than the positive and thus ward off the blindedness caused by the constant positive feedback loop. Leaders who facilitate a mosaic of perspectives and have the unique ability to help bring the varying viewpoints together into an action plan created and owned by all.<\/p>\n
When considering church leadership today, I wonder if we aren\u2019t reenacting Israel\u2019s failure in I Samuel 8. God makes it clear when Israel demanded a king like everyone else, that it was God they were actually rejecting as their King. Are we doing the same? It is always interesting to me that when Jesus ascended he didn\u2019t appoint a leader from among them. In fact, he cautioned them about their idea of greatness and position. Is Tourish\u2019s model possible and if so could it be that adult development is the vital issue? There really is only one Messiah, the rest of us are better leaders when we are focused followers of him and being conformed to his image, the ultimate stage five adult.<\/p>\n
1. Matthew 11:3 (NET)
\n2. Dennis Tourish, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership ( New York: Routledge, 2013), page 212.
\n3. Robert Keegan and Lisa Laskow Lacey, An Everyone Culture (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2016), Kindle Loc. 1075.
\n*disclaimer: this was written under extreme jet lag, intense cultural engagement and on an iPad so not well formatted under Turbian standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cAre you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?\u201d[1] John, who had proclaimed that Jesus was the Lamb of God, in a dark moment asked, \u201cAre you the Messiah, or should we keep looking?\u201d Human propensity through the ages has been to give agency to a leader who can solve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"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":[],"class_list":["post-21329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21329","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\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21330,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21329\/revisions\/21330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}