{"id":4682,"date":"2015-04-21T05:50:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T12:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=4682"},"modified":"2015-04-21T05:55:10","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T12:55:10","slug":"other-centered-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/other-centered-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Other-centered leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I read through Leadership is an Art<\/span> I became engaged with the undertone of the book\u2014the author\u2019s \u201cvoice,\u201d their passion. Max De Pree is presenting the theme of what I\u2019d call other-centered leadership. The employees are his passion: their involvement, gifting, participation, and success. In such a practical, helpful book there are dozens of positive observations that could be made. I\u2019ll reflect on three relationally-focused attributes of leadership: serving, participation, and covenant relationships.<\/p>\n

As a pastor, my scope of leadership reaches across the congregation, but that influence seems more conceptual than practical\u2014leadership at 10,000 feet. But when it comes to elders, deacons, ministry leaders, and church staff (especially), then my influence and my passion has an opportunity to really take shape. What shape should it take? Max De Pree offers clear insight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first responsibility of a leader is to define reality<\/em>\u201d according to De Pree. \u201cThe last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader<\/em>\u201d. [1]<\/a> Why is the first act of a leader to define reality? Because in doing so from a biblical worldview, we leaders understand ourselves as servants, as stewards. We\u2019re not owners, nor are we rulers. We have an organization that needs our care as opposed to our control; and the best way to care for the organizational side of the church is to care for, serve and shepherd its leaders. The disciples were horrified when they saw Jesus wrap the towel around his waist and stoop down to wash their feet; true humility by someone who is in a position of power always catches us by surprise. Other-centered leadership has a heart of humility.<\/p>\n

Second, other-centered leadership necessitates a participatory philosophy of management. \u201cParticipative management arises out of the heart and out of a personal philosophy about people.<\/em>\u201d[2]<\/a> When I worked for AT&T, my co-worker Gary Vogler modeled this. He valued the people he worked with, and that was obvious in how he elicited everyone\u2019s involvement, and how he discovered and encouraged us to use our gifts. Still in my 20s, Gary saw leadership in me, and he encouraged me by having me facilitate many of our team meetings. This participative philosophy is about seeing the potential in people and making sure you clear some obstacles to their participation in the team\u2019s or organization\u2019s success. Gary\u2019s interest in me wasn\u2019t simply a matter of workplace performance; our work included significant travel which means dinner on the road: Gary\u2019s other-centered posture opened the door for deep and often spiritual conversations.<\/p>\n

Third, De Pree distinguishes between contractual agreements and covenants. Contractual agreements are fairly straight forward, covering \u201csuch things as expectations, objectives, compensation, working conditions, benefits, incentive opportunities\u2026\u201d [3]<\/a> However, people don\u2019t thrive based on their contractual agreement.\u00a0\u00a0 They thrive when they are deeply valued, when the relationship itself is valued. Covenant relationship is a consequence of deeply valuing the person; it allows appropriate intimacy to form. Imagine an elite military unit working together to make it through a firefight. They\u2019ve become brothers-in-arms and, as such, are not motivated by contract but by the relationship they share. While that illustration may be an extreme example, I believe a church\u2019s leadership environment should be one that promotes the accountability and intimacy that covenant relationships need. De Pree surfaces the obstacles to such relationships, also applicable to any church staff or leadership teams; he writes, \u201cIn our group activities, intimacy is betrayed by such things as politics, short-term measurements, arrogance, superficiality, and an orientation toward self rather than toward the good of the group.<\/em>\u201d [4]<\/a> All such things (politics, short-term measurements, arrogance) like efficiency itself can violate relationship.<\/p>\n

De Pree wrote for business, for profit and non-profit organizations alike. But I think he also wrote for pastors charged with leading their leaders. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be going back to \u201cLeadership is an Art\u201d for many more insights, but already I see a solid biblical model for other-centered leadership: service as seen in humility, participative management as seen in promoting the gifts of others, and valuing the person more than the product or ministry they\u2019re charged with.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Max De Pree, Leadership is an Art (New York: Crown Business, 2004), 11.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Ibid, 24.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Ibid, 27.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 56.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I read through Leadership is an Art I became engaged with the undertone of the book\u2014the author\u2019s \u201cvoice,\u201d their passion. Max De Pree is presenting the theme of what I\u2019d call other-centered leadership. The employees are his passion: their involvement, gifting, participation, and success. In such a practical, helpful book there are dozens of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"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":[626,35,627],"class_list":["post-4682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-de-pree","tag-leadership","tag-other-centered","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682","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\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4684,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions\/4684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}