Sally Morgenthaler argues that the the next form of ministry leadership will break the Church’s dual addictions to power and passivity.
Power and passivity have taken a variety of forms since the institutionalization of Christianity about 1700 years ago. But whether in the form of priests or pastors, we still view leadership as “the great man with the plan” and follower-ship with paying staff to do the ministry for us.
Leadership in this century will be more about convening conversation:
- What do the people see that needs to happen in their neighborhoods?
- What gifts do they have for meeting the needs around them?
- How can we gather people around a common vision and then release them to do what they’re really good at doing?
Radical Collaboration
Business visionaries like Thomas Friedman, Max Depree, William Bergquist, Jim Collins, Marcus Buckingham, Margaret Wheatley, Stephen Covey–they’ve been predicting the populist, flattened world for a long time, and have been trying to orient leaders toward a radical collaboration that has conversation at its core.
Jesus: Not a CEO
Despite other books that see Jesus like a “CEO”, Sally has a hard time seeing that in light of Philippians 2:5-11. Somehow, a CEO “emptying himself, becoming a servant, even unto death” just doesn’t cut it. As we’ve seen with Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Hewlett Packard-corporate America ad nauseum CEOs typically don’t exactly move into the neighborhood and become one of us. But that’s what true leadership takes.
Women Leaders May More Naturally Convene Conversations
Sally argues that women with leadership abilities need to lead because, more often than not, they get this new flattened collaborative world and they get it really well. “In a world weary of hyper individualism, top-down systems, pedestal personalities, and I-win-you-lose dichotomies, the natural feminine resonance with the flattened world conversation, collaboration, participation, influence, presence, collective intelligence, and empowerment has raised the cultural bar for what true leadership is and does.”
New Rules of Engagement
Leadership in a truly flattened world has no precedents. According to Sally, never in the history of humankind have individuals and communities had the power to influence so much, so quickly. The rules of engagement have changed, and they have changed in favor of those who leave the addictive world of hierarchy to function relationally, intuitively, systemically, and contextually.
Male leaders . . . if they’re honest, they know they have tasted the new essence that is required of leadership now. They know it in the recesses of their boyhood memories and in the experience of intimacy, art, music, story, film, hospital prayers, and all that human beings do best, together. Those who are up to the challenge of the new world will draw on that deep knowledge. And they will look to the marginalized including women not as necessary evils in a politically correct world, but as their own leaders, mentors, and guides.
The brightest will finally dump the myth of the great man, park their egos, and follow the one Great Man into the relinquishment of power.
excerpt from Emergent Manifesto of Hope ©2006; Leadership in a Flattened World; Grassroots Culture and the Demise of the CEO Model; Sally Morgenthaler ; pgs. 185-186