I’ve been going through a pile of papers on my desk and found notes for a session on leadership focused on contemporary issues of leadership, focused on liberation from crazy, one size fits all, hero and trend-driven approaches to leadership. Thanks Jenny Tymms for the wisdom!

Freedom From

Crazy leadership is where you continue to put all your effort into doing something that might have been effective twenty years ago but which has become increasingly ineffective. It’s where you push people harder and harder to continue a program or start a program again, to to behave in certain ways because it has always been done. It confuses the program or method with the ministry that is sought to be lived out. In the end it will lead to depression, burn out and a sense of martyrdom. Crazy leadership might play itself out in stuck behaviour, in which a group continues a practice that has lost all meaning and purpose. It can be played out in remedial leadership, in which people attempt to prop up a program or group that has had its day.

One size fits all leadership attempts to copy or impose a model without thinking through the particular context, talking to people. Unspoken expectations can be applied to new or emerging leaders, believing that they will continue with the same models and practices that have been used before.

Hero leadership is often called for when people look for someone to do everything for them – thinking, organising, instructing, communicating. It’s played out by leaders who over function, constantly looking for the gaps and filling them with their own efforts.

Trend driven leadership emerges in contexts of anxiety, in which people grab at anything and everything they read or hear about. More and more things are started without reflecting on their history, on the skills and people power that they have, and on their resources. Ideas and practices come and go, often without the benefit of time, consultation or developed wisdom.

Freedom For

The paper I’m reading suggests that we need to allow freedom for imaginative leadership, realistic leadership, dense leadership and indifferent leadership.

Creativity and imagination are just as important as knowledge when it comes to guiding a community. Practicies that stimulate our own creativity involve slowing down, mutual story telling, exploration of images that feed imaginations, exploring creative passions in our personal lives, shared visioning, and sharing times to explore possibilities and dreams.

Realistic leaders know their people, who has skills for what, who will be supportive and who isn’t likely to be. They have a handle on systems thinking so they can analyse what’s going on in their organisation. They have a grasp of change management principles that give a sense of long term perspective and a capacity to break large goals down into doable chunks.

Dense leadership is about building the leadership capacity of others. This might involve inviting others to provide advice and suggestions. It will involve building teams of leaders in which differences are respected.

Indifferent leadership looks at discernment practices that hold personal agendas loose. It’s about being detached enough from our needs for success and approval, that we can listen to the deep sense of call that we have as a community. Ignatius of Loyola developed a whole community, now known as the Jesuits, around this sense of detachment – using prayer, silence, admission of ego attachments and release of those drives.

Further Reading

The notes I’ve referred to here provide for a workshop that takes an hour and a half. I’ve found more along these lines in an excellent Alban Institute book, “Not Trying Too Hard“, by Bob Sitze.