Movement Leaders as Heretics

As one commentator said, Seth Godin’s new book, Tribes, is an enthusiastic endorsement of standing up and taking the initiative.

Godin believes that what most often keeps someone from becoming a leader is the fear of failure. As we fear failure, we end up being managers and not leaders. Leaders always challenge the status quo. Godin makes this point over and over: leaders must be heretics.

Godin describes most people within organisations as “sheepwalkers,” those who “have been raised to be obedient” and those that are comfortable “with brain-dead jobs and enough fear to keep in line.”

Heretics are the opposite of this.

Heretics don’t let rules or religion stand in the way of what they want to accomplish; they “create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate.”

Now, it’s hard to escape the religious metaphors in the book. References to “heretics” and “fundamentalists” echo throughout. In centuries passed, heretics were burned for their religious views. However, in Godin’s 21st Century world, heretics may just be the ones that save us from an unremarkable world.

Godin’s use of heretic has little to do with doctrinal orthodoxy; he uses the term to describe those who challenge “organizational orthodoxy”—those who challenge the status quo. As he writes:

Challenging the status quo requires a committment, both public and private. It involves reaching out to others and putting your ideas on the line. (Or pinning your Ninety-five Theses to the church door).

Religion and faith are often confused. Someone who opposes faith is called an atheist and widely reviled. But we don’t have a common word for someone who opposes a particular religion.

Heretic will have to do.

If faith is the foundation of a belief system, then religion is the facade and the landscaping. It’s easy to get caught up in the foibles of a corporate culture and the systems that have been built over time, but they have nothing at all to do with the faith that built the system in the first place.

Change is made by people, by leaders who are proud to be called heretics because their faith is never in question.

Heretics are engaged, passionate, and more powerful and happier than everyone else. And they have a tribe that they support (and that supports them in turn).

Godin sees 7 traits of a heretical tribal leader:

1. They challenge – they challenge their tribe! Heretics must believe. More than anyone else in an organization, it’s the person who’s challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great, who is truly present and not just punching a clock who must have confidence in her beliefs.

2. They create culture – they intentionally create it. As Andy Crouch says in his recent book, Culture Making: “the only way that cultures change is when people make more culture”.

3. They are always curious – they’re always probing…

4. They have charisma – some inherently have it, but most get it because of the passion of their leadership. (D.A. Carson recently commented, “people don’t learn what I teach them, they learn what I’m excited about.”

5. They communicate – they talk with those they lead, not “to” or “at” those they lead.

6. They connect – they make it easy for followers to connect with them and with others. They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow.” Powerful leaders connect members of a tribe by a common interest (e.g. by sharing a passionate goal), and a determination to create things that did not exist before.

7. They commit – they commit to the wellness of the tribe.

Godin’s use of the “tribes” is helpful as well for those of us trying to build movements everywhere. A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. They are about faith – about believing in an idea and in their community. Movement leaders are tribal leaders.

What’s really powerful about tribes is the people. People are in a tribe because they all believe strongly in the same cause or movement. Everybody wants to belong, to be in a tribe–even multiple tribes. People communicate to each other in their tribe, they want to connect. And as Godin maintains, the internet/web/social media make this communication and connection easy. Everyone can lead a tribe.

The question isn’t, Is it possible for me to do that? Now, the question is, Will I choose to do it?