I had no idea there are so many contours to\u00a0leadership! \u00a0As a pastor, I have\u00a0mostly\u00a0subscribed to Bill Hybels definition of a leader as someone who brings a group of people from Point A to Point B. \u00a0Nohria and Khurana\u2019s collection of papers in Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice<\/i> prove to me that pastoring a church involves so much more than guiding people to a new destination. \u00a0Leadership research and academic writing virtually does not exist, Leadership is a complicated discipline filled with tensions, and finally, leadership is filled with, according to\u00a0Wakeman\u00a0and Hackman, irony.<\/p>\n
Where are the Academic Leadership Books?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
I can\u00a0relate\u00a0to the frustration that Nohria and Khurana feel over the lack of\u00a0academic\u00a0research and\u00a0writing\u00a0about the topic of leadership. \u00a0I am running into the same thing with my\u00a0research\u00a0on bivocational pastors. \u00a0I even had to turn in my\u00a0\u201cSizing Up My Resources\u201d assignment this week without five scholarly journals and books because they simply don\u2019t exist.\u00a0 The authors lament that so many academic business schools\u00a0claim in their vision statements and\u00a0mission statements the desire to create top notch leaders, but none of them actually research and produce\u00a0academic findings regarding\u00a0leadership. \u00a0One major sign of neglect explained by the authors is that faculty who teach leadership courses are repeatedly denied tenure tracks and are relegated to adjunct status. \u00a0I think it more than interesting that the authors not only say,\u00a0\u201cWe have what we deserve\u201d\u00a0(Nohria 5), but like Grenz\u2019\u00a0critique of how churches have too much folk theology, Nohria and Khurana complain that most books written on leadership are popular and not\u00a0academic.<\/p>\n
Complexities & Dualities<\/b><\/p>\n
The purpose of this book is to communicate the multiple meanings inherent in\u00a0leadership.<\/p>\n
1. There is a duality\u00a0between performance and creating meaning.<\/i><\/p>\n
This is a struggle\u00a0for\u00a0bivocational pastors because we often feel hindered by our\u00a0\u201csecular\u201d job. \u00a0So many times we focus on the creating meaning part by\u00a0planning\u00a0many events and spending a lot of time putting together an\u00a0\u201centertaining\u201d\u00a0Sunday morning experience. \u00a0The most\u00a0relevant essay for me in this section is written by Hackman who asserts that the role of the leader (as a direct front against modernity\u2019s loss of meaning), is to influence the organization\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n
2. There is a duality between seeing leaders as set apart as special people and leaders functioning in a more social role.<\/i><\/p>\n
Many\u00a0churches prefer a charismatic personality and\u00a0many popular leadership books focus on leadership style and leader behaviors and characteristics. \u00a0This works in the U.S. for many churches. \u00a0However, much of current thinking of leadership says that leaders should focus more on\u00a0\u201csetting a vision, communicating a direction, empowering or delegating authority to others, ensuring execution, and modeling integrity\u201d\u00a0(Nohria 16). \u00a0This last part of integrity is currently a big deal in my tribe, The Vineyard. \u00a0Maybe it\u2019s a reaction to all the\u00a0\u201cfallen\u201d pastors of the 1980s and 1990s, but becoming an emotionally\u00a0healthy\u00a0leader with integrity is currently in vogue in the Vineyard.<\/p>\n
3. There is a duality between leadership being universal and leadership being particular<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Leadership principles are not consistent across the board and in every\u00a0culture. Here in the U.S. Vineyard, we preach a lot about the\u00a0\u201cservant leader.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0However, in Uganda\u00a0where\u00a0I work to plant churches, the context is quite different and\u00a0people\u00a0respond better to a leader who is more authoritarian and acts more like a\u00a0\u201cchief.”<\/p>\n
4. There is a duality between leaders exercising power and constraint.<\/i><\/p>\n
Leaders are responsible\u00a0for\u00a0many areas of organizational life\u00a0like, “direction, organization, selection, motivation, and implementation\u201d\u00a0(Nohria 19). \u00a0Looking at leadership as\u00a0\u201cpower\u201d\u00a0asks the question, What is the leader responsible for?\u00a0 However, asking the\u00a0\u201chow\u201d\u00a0question brings up the idea of restraint. \u00a0Translated\u00a0to pastoring, this means the pastor has to learn how to delegate correctly.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the history of my tribe is filled with many instances of pastors handing over a lot of responsibility, but restraining and holding onto the needed authority to faithfully execute that responsibility.<\/p>\n
5. There is a duality between\u00a0\u201cdoing\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cbeing.”<\/i><\/p>\n
The authors\u00a0conclude, that leaders can actually be made. \u00a0For pastors, we like to talk about\u00a0\u201cgifting\u201d and\u00a0\u201canointing\u201d for leadership. \u00a0Currently, as stated above, the Vineyard, including myself, is focussing on\u00a0\u201cbecoming.\u201d\u00a0 Another term for this is spiritual formation. \u00a0It is important for pastors to\u00a0\u201cbe\u201d\u00a0before they attempt to\u00a0\u201cdo\u201d\u00a0anything. \u00a0It reminds me of what Martyn Percy told us in Hong Kong.\u00a0 He said we need to be concerned with\u00a0loving God and then concerned with the things that God is concerned with. \u00a0In order to do this properly, we need to be formed into the likeness of Christ more and more everyday.<\/p>\n
Ironies<\/b><\/p>\n
Wagman and Hackman (Chapter 17) point our four ironies of leadership.<\/p>\n
1. Even though leadership teams are composed of powerful people, they tend to underperform. <\/i><\/p>\n
This sums up many teams in the church I pastor. \u00a0The Hub has great people\u00a0 However, many of our teams are underperforming. \u00a0I learned that I need to give these teams a greater purpose and resource and lead them more.<\/p>\n
2. People desire to be on teams, but no one is really sure who is in or out of the team.<\/i><\/p>\n
I agree with Wagman and Hackman that many people seek team membership for it\u2019s power (Nohria 485). \u00a0I\u00a0also\u00a0am guilty of blurring the lines often of who is on a team and who isn\u2019t. \u00a0This was a difficult and challenging section for me to read because I need to grow in this area.<\/p>\n
3. Members are busy, but tend to waste time.<\/i><\/p>\n
Exactly! \u00a0Not much to say here except that this is the typical person that attends the Hub. \u00a0People are over\u00a0committed (I blame Globalization) but also great at wasting time.<\/p>\n
4. Authority dynamics have a strong bearing on teams, but members don\u2019t discuss it.<\/i><\/p>\n
No one\u00a0likes\u00a0to talk about the elephant in the room mainly because it has to do with relationships. \u00a0Churches I\u00a0think, are more guilty of this\u00a0because\u00a0we believe in loving neighbor and sometimes act more out of codependence than from discipleship and good theology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had no idea there are so many contours to\u00a0leadership! \u00a0As a pastor, I have\u00a0mostly\u00a0subscribed to Bill Hybels definition of a leader as someone who brings a group of people from Point A to Point B. \u00a0Nohria and Khurana\u2019s collection of papers in Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice prove to me that pastoring a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"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":[676,35,195],"class_list":["post-6333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp6","tag-leadership","tag-nohria","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333","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\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6334,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333\/revisions\/6334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}