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The details are as different as the pastors themselves, but the common thread is that they finally got worn down by trying to bring change to a church that was stuck and didn’t know what to do.
teaching (for providing Christian education) liturgics (for leading Christian services) pastoral care (for offering Christian counsel and support)
In this changing world we need to add a new set of leadership tools.
How do we lead a congregation or an organization to be faithful to the mission God has put before us when the world has changed so radically? What are the tools, the mental models, the wise actions and competing commitments that require navigation? And mostly, what transformation does it demand of those of us who have been called to lead?
From Lewis and Clark we will learn that if we can adapt and adventure, we can thrive.
learning to let go, learn as we go and keep going no matter what.
Only when a leader is deeply trusted can he or she take people further than they imagined into the mission of God.
Leadership is not authority. It is not the title or position that a person holds. Leadership is different from management. Leadership is not running good meetings, keeping good books, overseeing good programs and making good policies (as important as those are!).
Leadership is focused on what can be or what must be.
Churches and church leaders are becoming increasingly irrelevant, even marginalized.
But the church is also at an exciting crossroads. We are entering a new day, new terrain and a new adventure. We are not alone.
in less than a generation our world has become VUCA: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
All that we have assumed about leading Christian organizations, all that we have been trained for, is out of date.
education will not work. Education for maintenance is not the same thing as education for mission.
a missional mind shift alone doesn’t lend itself to the capacity building that actually brings change.
If you can adapt and adventure, you can thrive. But you must let go, learn as you go and keep going no matter what.
Leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world.
Your people need you to lead them even more than preach to them.
What does leadership look like in a day when the moorings of society have become disconnected from the anchors of faith?
Traditional churches will only become missionary churches as those in authority (and even those without formal authority) develop capacity to lead their congregations through a long, truly transformational process that starts with the transformation of the leaders and requires a thoroughgoing change in leadership functioning.
Today, preaching is not leadership but serves leadership.
Leadership requires shared, corporate learning expressed in new shared, corporate functioning. In order to act or function differently in a changing world, all true leadership will require transformation. To that end, all true leadership will be anchored in the principles of adaptive leadership.
Leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world.
Transformational leadership is a skill set that can be learned but not easily mastered. It is not a role or position, but a way of being, a way of leading that is far different than most of us have learned before.
Leadership requires a commitment to transformation, and transformation is the goal of leadership.
While high achievers are often considered for leadership roles, it isn’t necessary for transformational leaders to be experts in all technical skills.
Corps of Discovery.
who is our corps of discovery?
Perhaps the most unexpected, challenging and delightful work of transformational leadership is when it becomes the shared work of friends.
When given that particular choice, 90 percent choose dying.7 In a study of those who were faced with exactly that choice—stop drinking or you will die, stop smoking or you will die, change your diet now or you will die, the vast majority choose to risk death. In a world where we now have the technology to do heart valve bypasses and even complete heart transplants, we continually fail at getting people to change the behavior that makes these procedures necessary. As Ronald Heifetz says, “We have the technology to fix the heart, but not change it.”8 True change of heart, true transformation, is
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In uncharted territory, trust is as essential as the air we breathe. If trust is lost, the journey is over.
Trust must be added to credibility. Relationships must be healthy, life-giving and strong. The web of connectedness within the organization must be able to hold each other in the midst of all the chaos that comes from not knowing what is to come.
“The mission first; the men always.”
“There is one core principle for developing these relationships. People must be engaged in meaningful work together if they are to transcend individual concerns and develop new capacities.”
The men of the Corps of Discovery experienced their leaders as constant and caring, and congruently so in every context.21 There is not one documented example of Lewis and Clark breaking ranks with each other in a three-year expedition through the most dangerous and unknown territory ever explored. From the evidence we have, they had no disagreements in front of the men. There was never a hint that Lewis, who clearly had the authority to do so, ever pulled rank on Clark. By the time they came to the Lemhi Pass and readied themselves to go into uncharted territory, it was clear: The men now
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Lewis and Clark used their deep friendship, built on shared, meaningful, purposeful work, to build the Corps into a family. The family then became even more effective for the sake of their mission. When they most needed it—when going off the map into the depths of the Rocky Mountains—they could rely on their deep trust in each other.24
But it is crucial to remember again that the goal of the expedition was not to build a family—it was to find a route to the Pacific Ocean. Similarly, the goal of the Christian faith is not simply to become more loving community but to be a community of people who participate in God’s mission to heal the world by reestablishing his loving reign “on earth as it is in heaven.”
organizational culture is “the way we do things around here.”
Culture is the combination of actual values and concrete actions that shape the warp and woof of organizational life.
“The idea of getting people moving in the same direction appears to be an organizational problem. But what executives need to do is not organize people but align them.”11 As we will see, the more aligned an organization is, the healthier it is.
clarity, embodiment and love.
organizational culture is shaped by the actions of people, especially the leaders.
It is a great paradox that love is not only the key to establishing and maintaining a healthy culture but is also the critical ingredient for changing a culture.
And if “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” then how do we change the culture before we are eaten alive?
The most critical attribute that a congregation must have if it is going to thrive in uncharted territory is a healthy organizational culture.
Adaptive leadership is about “letting go, learning as we go, and keeping going.” It’s about loss, learning and gaps: “Adaptive leadership consists of the learning required to address conflicts in the values people hold, or to diminish the gap between the values people stand for and the reality they face.”4
We keep canoeing even though there is no river.
At the core of adaptive work is clarifying what is precious, elemental—even essential—to the identity of an organization. The core ideology of any group functions as both a charter and an identity statement. This is who we are, we say. If we stop being about this, we stop being.
What are we really called to? Is it just to professional success or personal security? Is it merely to get more people in the church pews and dollars in the offering plates so our congregations can keep offering religious services to those who desire them? Is church leadership nothing more than an exercise in institutional survival? Or isn’t there a higher purpose, a set of guiding principles, a clear compilation of core values that are more about being a community of people who exist to extend God’s loving and just reign and rule in all the earth? This moment forces us to face and clarify our
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For church leaders facing this missional moment, the reframing of church strategy from a sanctuary-centered, membership-based, religious- and life-service provider to a local mission outpost for furthering the kingdom of God enables our congregations to discover a faithful expression of our corporate identity in a changing world. No longer will we be the center of or have a monopoly on cultural conversations regarding moral life and spiritual values. No longer do social structures support church life or give preferences to Christian tradition. But, in a more pluralistic public square, where
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This is what adaptive leadership is all about: hanging on to the healthiest, most valuable parts of our identity in life and letting go of those things that hinder us from living and loving well.
