Contextual Leadership. (art by norman e. masters)

Transcription

1 Contextual Leadership (art by norman e. masters) Adam Klein Biblical Seminary ETREK: Leadership and Emerging Culture December 22, 2004

2 Each person's only hope for improving his lot rests on recognizing the true nature of his or her basic personality, surrendering to it, and becoming who he or she really is. -- Sheldon Kopp Ever since I took the Meyers Briggs personality test in high school I've had a fascination with personality tests. I often take time to surf the internet for free tests that I can take to see what they say about "who I am" or "what personality profile I fit into". Related to this I also love interacting with people in one on one situations or in small group settings. I love environments in which I can interact with people in more than merely a superficial manner. I enjoy listening to other people's stories and to bounce ideas off of them that come to mind while I'm listening. Engaging with people on some sort of discovery level where you find out as much about them as you do about yourself. It doesn't take much digging to find out why I love these things - they both relate to self discovery and awareness. One of the begging questions of postmodernity is Who are we? Thus, in talking about a philosophy of "postmodern leadership" one the most pertinent aspects to deal with is self awareness. I think that in the postmodern context leadership might even be a bit of misnomer. It seems that the modern era was concerned with defining roles based upon some given criteria and to then find the best candidate to fulfill that role. Well, one of the critiques that postmodernism makes is that roles or definitions are incongruent with life and the way we experience it. To lay out a philosophy of postmodernism leadership could be seen as a going against the very thing that postmodernism is reacting to. Of course that is a self-refuting statement in that by making

3 the very statement you are indeed promoting a philosophy of leadership. I think though that what postmodernism would offer is, rather than a philosophy of leadership it would be a philosophy of life so to speak and from that a priori philosophy all other aspects would sprout. A philosophy of self discovery is by no means a new development with postmodernism and using this as a spring board to develop further ideals for specific topics is exactly what the Enlightenment did only from a different vantage point. As Guder points out The power and influence of various institutions, including the church, monarchies of various sorts, the feudal system, and the guild, shaped the identity of the individual in medieval Europe. In this context, personal interests and freedoms were submerged within the larger corporate interests. A primary goal of the Enlightenment was to formulate a new basis for the individual identity as the key to increasing personal freedom. While theorists pursued this effort along the divergent paths of rationalism and empiricism, they shared in common basic understanding of the individual as a rational and autonomous self (23). The Enlightenment (post-medievalism) sought to redefine how people found their respective identity and postulated that that occurred in allowing the person to be an autonomous individual. From this basic stance modernism set the stage for the rest of its various outlooks and theories. One of those being the position of leader, where the climax seemed to be how clearly you could define a vision and get a group of people together to join in fulfilling that vision. Vision and mission statements were the mantra of the modern leadership ideal, and your success at defining a vision, communicating it, and seeing it come to fruition determined your success as a leader. In the current shift that is taking place postmodernism seeks to once again redefine how

4 the individual seeks to answer the question Who am I? from the context we currently find ourselves immersed in. The basic premise in postmodernity is that we are inseparable from our context and those we interact with and that the notion of autonomy was ludicrous. It's only from within our social interaction that we learn who we are. From here defining leadership becomes a paradox to the postmodern mindset. If everything is contextualized and based upon relationship how is it that we can layout an overarching philosophy of leadership? What is the underlying necessity to define a philosophy for leadership? I think that perhaps what lies underneath is the need to define the role/position/notion of a leader so that we can then move ourselves into that mold or learn those principles so as to increase our potential as a leader. Or, perhaps to say somewhat definitively that so and so is leader; to lift ourselves to a position of influence. This ideal of defining principles that we can then knowledge transfer to one another is exactly what postmodernism rejects. However, if leadership is simply the act of leading people or influencing them then I would argue, as does Dwight Friesen, that the most common understanding of leadership is influence. J. Oswald Sanders in Spiritual Leadership states, 'leadership is influence, the ability of one person to influence others.' Everyone has relative influence, therefore everyone leads (7). If everyone is a leader then by defining a philosophy of life and learning we indirectly define a philosophy of leadership since everyone is living and thereby a leader. I think this is the key to understanding the critique of modernism when it comes to roles and positions. Mainly that everyone has held a majority of the defined roles (ie. leader, manager, follower, secretary, mother, son, etc.) at least once during their life. The important thing then is not necessarily let's define what a leader looks like or how we think a leader should behave, but rather continue to learn about who we are and how we operate in different circumstances and behave relationally in life. In this setting of openness, continual learning, and humility, leadership will then fluctuate

5 from one person to another depending on the situation. One way that helps me in understanding the difference is two imagine the two camps: modernism and postmodernism. I would argue that in the modern setting there would be a declared leader, most likely self declared and if an outsider was to ask the group who the leader was everyone would point to that individual, or by observing the behavior of the group one would immediately spot the leader of the group. Whereas in the postmodern camp if someone asked the group who the leader was, everyone in the group might look at each other in sort of a confused state not knowing really how to answer the question, and wonder about its pertinence. After some thought the group would most likely point to a plethora of individuals. Furthermore, in that setting if there were a few people that were selected as the leaders those chosen might not even recognize it. This reveals another slight critique of modernism. The modern leader would be declared from the beginning while in the postmodern context the leader would emerge from the group and that emergence might only last while a given situation is at hand without the individual even cognitively recognizing it. The leadership is more fluid and dynamic shifting from individual to individual. Another important element which isn't necessarily tied to postmodernism but rather to Jesus and Biblical principles of church life is that as a relational community each individual will be acting in interest of the group. People will pour out themselves in each other becoming servants of one another, just as Jesus did while he was here. Inherent in interaction with people is that we affect one another, in other words we lead one another. By being servants of one another we lead each other to the feet of Jesus as we empty ourselves. Again, this is not necessarily a trait of just leaders but one would hope that this would be the trait of all followers of Christ. In so doing we become as Christ was, outlined by Paul in Philippians 2. By becoming as Christ was we become communities of believers living out our purpose of demonstrating

6 God's kingdom on Earth (Guder 103). This type of servant-hood can only be accomplished through a tremendous humbling of ourselves accomplished only by the grace of God. Jesus was the perfect embodiment of leadership because he carried full knowledge of Himself and his relation to our Father. He understood perfectly that leadership in the reign of God only comes from an obedience to the Father. Therefore missional leadership requires a spirituality that lives in close relationship with and reliance on the directions of the Father through the Spirit (Guder 186). This again is not a character trait or principle singled out for leaders. I think that God would have us all be in such a close relationship with Him, but not only with Him but with others as well. As our creator God understands that we are created to be in relation, as it is within relation that we discover who God made us to be. God himself is in relation with Himself and it's the full awareness of that relationality in the Godhead that makes him God. Moreover, within the Godhead there is no particular leader 1 our Father points to Jesus, Jesus to Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit to the Father and vice versa across the board as represented pictorially below. Father Holy Spirit Jesus In this sense God leads as a community. Guder points out that Jesus himself spoke of leading 1 The Father deferring to Jesus is evident in Colossions 1:15-17, John 1; Jesus to the Father in Mark 14:36, Matt 6:10, Jesus giving way to the Spirit Mark 1:7, The Spirit yields to Jesus and in Father in that his whole purpose to bring us into the pretense of God and Jesus

7 apostolically in the context of the Trinity (186). How much more so then should we be living as an apostolic community dependent on one another. While this dependence in innately woven into the fabric of life, we can and must be intentional about our relationality. We should seek interaction with people and God, seek to put ourself in settings where discovery of other (God & people) can take place. We must have an openness to continually learning as we can never be fully aware while living in this fallen state, therefore there is always opportunity for new growth and insight. Underlying our understanding of our relationality to our Father and each other is once again influenced by our understanding of ourselves. Specifically, that aside from God we are a hopeless mess of evil and confusion, as we begin to understand our innate wickedness our spirit becomes broken and as we become weak opening the door for God's love and grace to infiltrate and uplift us. It's only by embracing brokenness that we can truly relate to Jesus and the message of the gospel. I can't even imagine how devastated the spirit of Jesus must have been while he was with us on earth. I often meditate on his last words while hanging on the cross Father forgive them, they just don't understand. How he yearned for us to understand the message of the gospel and our ignorance must have broken his heart. Embracing that brokenness ultimately brings us to our knees before God whereby our hearts are transformed and minds renewed. It's through this that our understanding of life and ourself begins to change and our concern becomes each other rather than ourselves and as we pour out ourselves into each other we lead each other into love (God). Reinforcing the fact that we are all leaders as we follow Christ together. This notion that everyone is a leader even appears outside the religious realm in Hirschorn's book as he recounts the story of GM's conference with the employees and managers. Leadership, one observer noted, 'was everyone in the room' (11). This leadership comes only as we allow

8 ourselves to transformed by the grace of God, and open ourself to learning 2. This is a slight shift from the modern idea of leadership or existence for that matter, in that we are no longer is pursuit of pure intellectual knowledge. The idiom knowledge is power looses some of its luster and is instead replaced by experience and relational depth of the divine. Qualifications for leading will no longer be identified with schooling and academic qualifications (Guder 193), but with discernment of the Holy Spirit (Guder 174). This again though should not seen as something unique set aside for leaders but that all should seek to be guided by the Spirit. In a given snapshot of time those that are most in tune with God through his Spirit will however most likely emerge as the leader. Suggesting then that leaders are summoned not born (Sweet). Given a certain set of circumstances the person(s) who are most in-tune with what's going on or whomever God sees fit will be summoned by God to lead even though they may not want to be the leader. In recounting his early days Ghandi mentions that he didn't even want to be a leader, let alone for the nation of India, but because he was so moved by the enslavement of Indians and was so in tune with what was going on that he could not sit idle. Even though, by his own admission he was ill-equipped to lead in that he lacked character traits often associated with leaders. He was terrified of public speaking and disliked confrontation and had a timid spirit. Nonetheless, Ghandi is pointed to again and again as one of the world's greatest leaders. It was sensitivity to his surroundings and his context, combined with the way his heart was moved that enabled Ghandi to emerge or be summoned as a leader (5-100). Moses argued with God about leading the Isrealites as he felt ill-equipped, but again Moses emerged as a leader. This role of leader can again come and go depending on how situation changes. This is yet another case though of a life philosophy rather than strictly a leadership principle. By attuning ourself to our 2 This is more than learning intellectually, but must encompass emotional, spiritual, and social learning as well

9 surroundings and studying what is going on we are essence learning about ourself and how we relate to our surrounding and how they relate to us. By being immersed in our surroundings and acting upon our local environment we behave much the way an ant does. Steven Johnson does an excellent job of describing how that within an ant colony there are no leaders, no one ant telling the other ants what to do (78-79). The ants simply react to what's occurring around them locally in a manner that is productive for the colony and every ant acting in that manner creates an order to the colony and when looked at from a macro perspective is a complex system rich with order. In the same sense when we are in tune with our surrounds and we simply recognize what needs to be done for the greater group we create order and health and we are all leaders once again. I'd like to return to where I started this monologue where I revealed my love for self discovery and would like to tell a story that is unfolding as we speak, as it would be an appropriate summary of everything I expounded upon earlier and put it into real life. Over the past few months I've been having intentional conversations with people about where they are at in life; specifically in terms of church. There is a group of about 8 people I was/am talking to either directly or indirectly. Meaning, couples were a part of that 8 and often I would only speak to one half of the partnership. The people in the group shared some common friendships but at this juncture in time I was the main bridge. Conversations would happen over meals, coffee, random crossings, or at the pub and the meetings would be initiated mainly by 3 or 4 people (myself included). Over time I noticed commonalities between the different conversations and would carry those to the other conversations as would others. In a sense we were leading each other toward fulfilling our desire to follow after Jesus as a community. Truth be told, my main motive for getting together with people was entirely selfish in that I wanted a group of people that I felt connected with and with whom I could share where my relationship

10 with Jesus stood and to maybe aid them in their journey. After months of conversations it was decided that we should all get together and see what happens. See if people felt like it helped them in their journey with Jesus. So on a Sunday night a few weeks ago a group of us did just that. We all gathered at someone's home for an evening of prayer, singing, sharing, and eating. Now, who were the leaders? What did I learn about leadership through this experience? A few things really, most of which I stated earlier. Mainly that I think thinking about being a leader or trying to lead something and making that your focus (having a vision) could in fact get in the way. I've been a part of situations where a vision can actually be detrimental as it turns the focus from what's at hand to some imaginary ideal and we lose touch with reality. It could be argued that this is precisely what occurred but I would argue otherwise. This whole thing started merely as conversations and the purpose was not to try and hold a gathering there wasn't a vision cast and then hours and hours spent trying to make that vision a reality. Rather it was merely an investment of time in peoples lives for the mere sake of learning about what they were experiencing and to try and make sense of all of it together. That is why I declare it as a selfish venture because my motivation was to seek self awareness and discovery for myself, but in so doing I inherently affected the people I interacted with and they affected me. It was in our pursuit of living in the reality of the kingdom God that ultimately motivated us to do what we did. We adapted the notion of emptying ourself and serving one another even if it was simply just listening to each others struggles and ponderings about life. A lot time was spent in prayer and seeking after the heart of God. Very little time was spent in planning the gathering, in fact the outline for the evening occurred the night before, and even then it was done by 3 people (the invitation was open to all). Even as the three of us sketched out an outline it was precisely that, an outline, intentionally left open for changes to occur that night. Other than simply being together in the presence of God there was no agenda or vision for how it would look. We led

11 each other and the gathering sort of just happened. In summary, it's our own self awareness, discovery, and openness to learning about ourself, God and others that is the paramount philosophy, regardless if we label it as a leadership philosophy or life philosophy. Whether modern, postmodern or ancient, it's in our seeking to understand these things (us, God, others) that will inevitably invite us into relation to one another and to God. We would be remiss to think that we can learn anything about ourself, God or others without spending time in relation to each, understanding that they are all intrinsically tied together. It's our intentionality about our discovery that will determine the depth of our knowledge 3 of each other. As we empty ourself for the sake of others and Christ we will inherently be leaders at some point in our journey. It's understanding the journey in terms of 'we have arrived' and 'will always be arriving' that is important. Meaning that we have already arrived as followers of Christ but will always be continuing to arrive since we live in a fallen time. This leaves endless opportunity for discovery as each moment unveils more about us and God. For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many. Jesus Matt. 20:28 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. Paul 1 Cor. 13:12 3 When I use the term knowledge I mean more than merely intellectual knowledge. It has to be a more holistic type of knowledge, both a intellectual, spiritual and emotional knowledge that seldom can be determined by simple measures of test

12 Works Cited Friesen, Dwight. Hubbing: The Being and Act of Leadership within Dynamic Christ- Clusters. Bellevue, WA Guder, Darrell L. ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Grant Rapids, Michigan. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998 Hirschorn, Larry. Reworking Authority: Leading and Following in the Post-Modern Organization. Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press, Johnson, Steven. Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. New York. Scribner, 2001 Mohandas, Ghandi K. Ghandi: An Autobiography. The Story of my Experiments with Truth. Boston, MA. Beacon Press, 1993 Sweet, Leonard. Summoned to Lead. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan, 2004