{"id":6004,"date":"2015-10-14T18:37:22","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T01:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=6004"},"modified":"2015-10-14T18:37:22","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T01:37:22","slug":"we-are-all-dispensable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/we-are-all-dispensable\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are All Dispensable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Fall at the Vanderblomen, Next: Succession conference<\/em>, I was somewhat jokingly told there were two circumstances that can best help an incoming pastor hoping to replace a founding pastor\u2026either the Founding pastor suddenly dies or he\/she has a major moral failing. In Manfred Kets de Vries, The Leadership Mystique,<\/em> I am given equally encouraging advice for the outgoing CEO (pastor) when Kets de Vries talking about power transferring also somewhat jokingly says, \u201cthe major task a CEO faces is finding his likely successor and then killing the bastard.[1]<\/a>\u201d Chapter 11 in Kets de Vries book is titled \u201cThe Dynamics of Succession\u201d so I knew that would be a good place for me to dive in.<\/p>\n

Kets de Vries does an excellent job is this book discussing the need for emotional intelligence and that carries over to his chapter on succession. As you would expect from Ket de Vries, in regards to succession he doesn\u2019t just lay out plans and strategies for succession, but he gets into the emotions an incoming or outgoing leader might be feeling. Fear is a key emotion Ket de Vries identifies in both parties during succession. Regarding the outgoing leader, Ket de Vries says, \u201csuccession arouses basic fears of death\u2026CEO\u2019s tend to be fairly close-lipped about their fears and feelings, making succession shrouded in mystery.[2]<\/a>\u201d For the incoming leader Ket de Vries identifies another reason for fear, \u201conce a person becomes head honcho, there are no obvious new positions to strive for. It\u2019s success or failure; there are no other options.[3]<\/a>\u201d It seems pretty clear to me that these fears mostly revolve around power, the fear of letting go of power and the fear of obtaining power.<\/p>\n

Fears revolving around power also exist in the church. After studying numerous case studies of pastors letting go or retiring, one of the most common difficulties I\u2019ve observed directly connects with Ket de Vries comment on CEO\u2019s when he says, \u201cCEO\u2019s are highly sensitive to shifts in power and some simply can\u2019t face the reality of losing power.[4]<\/a>\u201d Just like CEO\u2019s, many pastors attach their identity to their work and have a hard time letting go of power. Pastors are just as likely to become workaholics and tend to build their church around their own personality making it even more difficult to one-day walk away.<\/p>\n

Kets de Vries points to a trait that is often present in successful successions and that is being able to accept that everyone is dispensable. Charles de Gaulle\u2019s comment \u201cthat graveyards of the world are full of indispensable men[5]<\/a>\u201d should hopefully resonate with church leaders. As church leaders we should humbly lead knowing that one day we won\u2019t be around but hopefully our legacy will. While we all desire to walk out on top, the truth is most of us are going to have to humbly learn to let go at some point in our life, facing our fear and letting go of power. Which is why succession planning is such an important task we all should be thinking about. As Ket de Vries concludes regarding succession that \u201cthe acid test of excellent leadership is what happens when the leader is no longer there.[6]<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries,\u00a0The Leadership Mystique: Leading Behavior in the Human Enterprise<\/em>, 2nd ed. (Harlow, England.: FT Press, 2009), 225.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 224<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 219<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 225<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 226<\/p>\n

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

Last Fall at the Vanderblomen, Next: Succession conference, I was somewhat jokingly told there were two circumstances that can best help an incoming pastor hoping to replace a founding pastor\u2026either the Founding pastor suddenly dies or he\/she has a major moral failing. In Manfred Kets de Vries, The Leadership Mystique, I am given equally encouraging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"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":[246],"class_list":["post-6004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ketsdevries","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6005,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004\/revisions\/6005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}