Friday, June 29, 2007

What's Wrong with the "Vision" Thing?



For many years I followed the advice of many of my mentors, notably Ed Friedman, who recommended that a mature leader was to stay in good relationship with members of the system while taking clearly defined positions (Generation to Generation, p. 229). He taught that the eyes are located in the head for a very good evolutionary purpose--so that the head could lead the rest of the body with clear vision. So visionary leadership became one of my guiding principles. After several hard knocks in leadership, I now see a flaw in that logic. Friedman, a man of the mid 20th century, took a patriarchal, individualistic perspective on congregational leadership. Almost with an "of course," it was assumed that the rational, intellectual (socialized male) approach was the correct one.

Now there's new mind research that indicates vision is not so much individual as communal. Writers like Daniel Goleman (Primal Leadership, Harvard Business School Press, 2002), and Joseph Bragdon (Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels, Society for Organizational Learning, 2006) note that we see not only with our eyes and our higher brain, but also we pick up key information on the emotions and insights of others through deeper brain paths. The true locus of leadership, they argue, is not the eyes but the heart.

That suggests to me that leadership is a communal activity, best carried out in concert with as many members of the congregation as possible. It's not my vision, but our vision that counts. In a flat world, with open sourcing as an important variable, leadership in the Wikepedia model is more likely to succeed in the 21st century than leadership on the model of the elite academy.

Maybe the task of the leader, as Harrison Owen suggested years ago (Riding the Tiger, Abbot, 1991), is to "keep the sytem open" for full and rich and complex participation of all the resources at hand.

What do you think leadership is?

Friday, June 22, 2007

Associate Executives Focus on Transformational Leadership






Twenty seven professional staff members of presbyteries (regional governing bodies) of the PC(USA) participated in a national gathering this week at Louisville Seminary. The first such gathering in recent history attracted about one-third of that population. Coming from nearly every region of the country, and serving in a wide variety of job titles and responsibilities, the group found an instant kinship based on the experience of leading "from the second chair." I provided two presentations for their continuing education: "Transformational Leadership" (based on my interpretation of the discernment process in Peter Senge, et al, Presence, SOL/Currency, 2005) and "Hope in Structures." (based on my book Hope in Conflict, Pilgrim, 2007). The transformation of congregations, presbyteries and denominations seemed to be uppermost in the minds of participants. Many important networking connections were established in the two day event, and the group also set plans in place to meet again at the 2008 General Assembly in San Jose and in 2009 for continuing education and support. Contact Felipe Martinez [fmartinez@whitewatervalley.org] for more information about upcoming meetings.


Friday, June 15, 2007

Transformational Leadership http://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/trstrv/v13y2006i3p607-623.html

Thanks to Doctor of Ministry student Neil Salvaterra, I have been introduced to an article by Alexander Scheiffer of the Center of Excellence for Leadership and Learning in Munich, someone obviously connected to the Senge school of learning organizations. This article (see link) brings together systems theory, cybernetics, constructivist and communication theory to suggest what he calls "co-creative leadership." His argument is: if an organization is a system, held together by its own self-organizing logic and communication, all parts or members of the organization are needed to carry the organization forward. Suitable actions to adapt to the current situation in its environment can be found through collaborative, dialogical interaction. Difference in perspective among members are accepted and taken into account in development of a common position from which collective action can follow. A top-down, unilateral, linear, controlling leadership prevents application of all of the resources of an organization to a suitable action. Co-creative leadership is defined by Schieffer as "the continuous formation of creative and communicative contexts that facilitate a cooperative process for developing solutions for the organization as a whole" (p. 11). This article has given me new encouragement for and an expanded vocabulary for talking about and living out transformational leadership.

Monday, June 11, 2007

The Connection Between Ministry, Learning, and Research

As I worked with the D. Min. group this week on learning to do praxis research for the Doctor of Ministry Project, I was struck at the deep connection between doing ministry, learning from and reflecting on life and ministry and doing research. Except for those who insist on continuing to do ministry the way they've always done it (those who tend to have one year experience in ministry 10 times instead of 10 years of experience), we're lifelong learners who learn and grow in ministry. When we see a service or a program that needs to be done, we figure out what we need to know and who we need to work with, and we equip ourselves and our community of faith to do that ministry. We define the problem or question, reflect on it theologically and biblically, set a goal, select strategies and actions to meet the goal, get to work and do the ministry, and then we evaluate it. Research for ministry, as done in a praxis oriented, practical theology Doctor of Ministry program, follows the same process. The difference is that research tends to be more intentional, pays more attention to the steps, and expect a more specific outcome or result from the action. Because research is usually "written up" and shared with others who might face a similar question or problem, it is also subject to review and critique by others in ministry. Nevertheless in ministry, learning and research: something is addressed, something is done, something is learned, and implications for future action are drawn. These three are connected to joining God in the process of transformation!