I recently finished Tim Keel’s "Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos" and loved his notion of leadership as a posture. Concerned how "models" (leadership models or ministry models) are contextual and not easily transferable, Tim argues that its helpful to think in terms of "postures." A posture is a way of positioning oneself; it refers to one’s bearing or attitude. A "forward leaning" leadership posture positions the leader, for example, toward action or toward openness and receptivity. Tim holds that leaders of churches (or movements) should adopt the following postures of engagements that allow them to see and respond to the possibilities that are available because of God’s activity out in front of them. Each of these postures lean away from the "posture of the expert or of the leader who knows all." Such postures keep the leader open to the possibilities in his or her context. As you read thru these, think of implications to your movement leadership, not of direct applications per se.
1. A Posture of Learning: From Answers to Questions
Leaders can often learn more from a well-formed question than from a glibly offered answer . . . I’m finding that questions require more work, more attentiveness to what is happening in the environment. It takes a lot more depth, presence, and creativity on the part of the leader to ask a well-formed, sensitive, and sincere question that engages the person on the other end of the relationship. We have to ask in order to learn . . . we have to ask in order to engage. . . What if leaders refused the posture of expert and took on the posture of humble and engaged learner? What if leaders learned the art of the question?
2. A Posture of Vulnerability: From the Head to the Heart
Leaders discover ways to engage both the head and the heart. The people we lead need to be engaged in more than cognitive ways; we as leaders need to discover as well ways of leading that allow our own hearts to be engaged. Passion flows from a heart fully engaged. And to engage the heart, the leader must be present and help his people be present. Being present is hard because it means engaging pain–it involves brokenness and vulnerability. But as we engage pain and the brokenness of our hearts, we live deeply and connect deeply. This posture of vulnerability in leaders gives them access to the hearts of their people. Leaders must become conversant in the language of the heart.
3. A Posture of Availability: From Spoken Words to Living Words
Leaders are like OT prophets who were often forced by God to live lives that proclaimed God’s message beyond mere words. A prophet’s words were the final expression of a process that began with God’s working internally. Hosea must marry a unfaithful wife before he can plead God’s words to a faithless Israel to "return to me and call me "My husband." Jeremiah must buy property in a doomed Jerusalem to pronounce a future hope. The content of the message is integrally linked to the person communicating it. Leaders shouldn’t be surprised that God allows them to suffer first, to experience pain and discomfort, to hear God’s voice out of the whirlwind. Leaders must resist the temptation to evade or anesthetize pain. Instead, they must embrace it. Do we allow life’s challenges to be our trusted teacher or a hated foe? Leaders must embrace the former.
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