{"id":8061,"date":"2019-09-26T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T10:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ben-sternke-live.prev17.rmkr.net\/?p=8061"},"modified":"2025-03-07T18:54:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:54:56","slug":"2-ways-leadership-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/es\/2-ways-leadership-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Ways We Get Leadership Wrong in the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the simplest instructions Jesus gave his disciples came during the last supper before his crucifixion:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not to be like that.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After his disciples starting arguing about who was the greatest, Jesus pointed out that \u201cthe kings of the Gentiles\u201d lead in a certain way: lording authority over people, positioning themselves\u00a0as benefactors for others.<\/p>\n

Jesus is pretty clear: don\u2019t be like that!<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 ways to lead “like a Gentile”<\/h2>\n

But what does \u201cthat\u201d look like? How does this kind of leadership play out? How can we recognize it when we see it?<\/p>\n

I want to suggest there are two ways we see “Gentile” leadership today. They look like opposites, but they\u2019re really two sides of the same coin:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Top-down, hierarchical leadership.<\/strong> This one is probably the most obvious expression of Gentile leadership today.<\/li>\n
  2. Bottom-up, flat leadership.<\/strong>\u00a0This is kind of the equal and opposite reaction to top-down leadership, but it\u2019s also\u00a0an expression of Gentile leadership!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s talk about each of these to see how neither one is an expression of Jesus\u2019 kind of leadership.<\/p>\n

    Top-down hierarchy in the 21st century<\/h2>\n

    The Gentile leadership paradigm most common in churches today is what we will call the CEO\/Boss Model.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    In this model, the\u00a0leader is the expert<\/em>, the one who is \u201cin charge,\u201d who has the power to hire and fire, call the shots and control the movement of the organization.<\/p>\n

    In this system, authority is the positional power to manage variables, influence people, and control results.<\/p>\n

    Successful leadership in this paradigm is evaluated by growth and profit. Relationships and people are leveraged within the organization to ensure those outcomes are met.<\/p>\n

    Problems are to be fixed or eliminated according to best practices. Anything that interferes with the goal of the growth and profit of the organization is a threat the leader must overcome.<\/p>\n

    The metaphor we often use for this kind of organization is that of a machine<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s about efficiency, productivity, success, execution, chain of command, output, outcomes, getting things done, making things happen.<\/p>\n

    In this model, the qualities most important in the leader are expertise and competency: confidence, persuasiveness, ability to influence and manage a staff, and delivering on outcomes.<\/p>\n

    Employees who work in this type of leadership model are used and managed \u2013 they are a capital to utilize and leverage for the betterment of the organization.<\/p>\n

    Not necessarily wrong<\/h2>\n

    Now, don\u2019t hear what we’re not saying.<\/strong> This kind of leadership isn\u2019t necessarily wrong<\/em> in and of itself. Some jobs require an expert or a highly-skilled technician.<\/p>\n

    For example, when I take my car into my\u00a0mechanic Anthony, I\u2019d prefer he make things happen and get things done. I\u00a0want him to diagnose and fix what\u2019s wrong, No collaborative or participation on my part is necessary.<\/p>\n

    Same with a\u00a0heart surgeon. I don’t need to be empowered by my heart surgeon or involved by my heart surgery; I want the surgeon to just do her job.<\/p>\n

    For the surgeon and the mechanic (and many other jobs), a top-down, command and control, hierarchical leadership style is thoroughly appropriate and necessary. Task-oriented work is often like this; hierarchies and control tend to work best when the focus is on task and manipulating impersonal objects to produce results.<\/p>\n

    But the church isn\u2019t like that<\/h2>\n

    So why does Jesus say we are not to be like that? Because he\u2019s talking about leading the church<\/em>, and the church isn\u2019t a machine or a discipline of technical expertise.<\/strong> The church is people-oriented and people are thoroughly dissimilar to catheters and carburetors.<\/p>\n

    If we are going to be a Jesus kind of leader, one who makes disciples (investing in, developing, and empowering people to be leaders who make other leaders), we will need a different quality of leadership. We will need to learn to be people-oriented more than task-oriented.<\/p>\n

    Top-Down, Command and Control Leadership may work for some (task-oriented) jobs, but for making disciples it just doesn\u2019t cut it. And many have intuited this and have tried to fix the “problem” of the top-down CEO\/Boss leadership by trying to do the “opposite”.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Bottom-up, \u201cflat\u201d leadership isn’t the answer either<\/h2>\n

    When people realize\u00a0that a top-down model of leadership isn\u2019t quite what Jesus had in mind, they often swing the pendulum in the other direction to a \u201cCircle of friends\u201d paradigm of leadership<\/strong> (especially<\/em> if they\u2019ve been wounded by top-down leadership).<\/p>\n

    If top-down could be called authoritarian and is mirrored in cultural governmental systems like a monarchy<\/em> (in extreme cases dictatorship), bottom-up\u00a0leadership tends to be anti-authoritarian and mirrored in democratic<\/em> systems of government (in extreme cases anarchy).<\/p>\n

    In this paradigm, authority rests not in the will of a single\u00a0leader, but in the masses. Majority (not the monarch!) rules.<\/p>\n

    Power isn\u2019t consolidated in the few, it is spread out in the many.<\/strong> People are generally suspicious of any one person becoming too powerful. But there’s a cost to this: authority spread out so thin can make an organization or group of people feel lost. In many\u00a0cases, vision is lacking, there is no direction, there is lots of permission given to do \u201cwhatever you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

    In the interest of no one getting hurt and keeping everyone happy, bottom-up\u00a0leadership environments are typically inefficient, lack alignment on vision and direction, and experience a low cohesive identity.<\/p>\n

    If people end up being used\u00a0<\/em>in top-down leadership models, they are simply\u00a0appeased\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0placated\u00a0<\/em>in bottom-up models. Keeping everyone happy, satisfied, and free from discomfort or conflict is the unstated goal that keeps everyone together.<\/p>\n

    Breaking out of the binary: Center-out leadership<\/h2>\n

    In a follow-up\u00a0article, we suggest a third option: neither top-down nor<\/em> bottom-up but a <\/a>center-out leadership.<\/strong>\u00a0(It looks more like a banana tree than banyan tree<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

    Center-out leadership means that authority isn\u2019t used to dominate others, but neither<\/em> is it\u00a0avoided. Instead, it is owned<\/em> and employed<\/em> on behalf of others.<\/p>\n

    But for the most part, most of us are stuck in an imaginative gridlock, a binary that only includes a spectrum between two options: top-down or bottom-up.<\/p>\n

    Neither seems to be a faithful embodiment of Jesus\u2019 practice or teaching (see Luke 22) in the Gospels and so we try to tweak our leadership slightly with:<\/p>\n