What's Up, Doc?⤒🔗

Leadership is all the rage today. It is evidenced in the numerous books, articles that address the subject and seminars, worship and lectures, offering to teach the uninitiated the fine art of leadership for fee, are the order of the day. Not to mention the host of experts and consultants, the new gurus, who each present their own particular brand of leadership: leadership that is "spiritual, strategic, effective, commonsense, limitless, line-of-sight, high-involvement, authentic, entrepreneurial, transformative, compassionate, legendary, brave" and the list goes on. All these approaches are purportedly designed to create "future leaders, emotional leaders, caring leaders, wise leaders, leaders of leaders, leaders as doers, leaders as mentors, leaders as trainers, leaders as learners, lead­ers that listen, leaders of meaning, leaders that are turned inside out," etc. Such leadership, which involves concepts such as "teams, system thinking, visioning, dialogue, service, continuous learn­ing, paradox management, empowerment, infrastructure of thought," to name a few, will hopefully result in a culture of "courage, listening, virtuous learning, trust, synergy, commitment," etc. and "learning organizations, 'amoeba' organizations, adaptive organizations, integral organizations" and a multiplicity of other imaginative (and imaginary) frameworks dedicated to quality and serv­ice. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: "What's up doc.?"

In a Rut←⤒🔗

What's up? A paradigm shift, that's what's up. A paradigm, from the Greek word for "pattern," is the way we organize and do things in everyday life. The term was first introduced by Thomas Kuhn in 1962 to indicate how people operate on mental models that shape everything they think, feel and do.¹ When such a paradigm becomes comfortable it is easily forgotten and for all intents and purposes becomes functionally invisible, it goes underground, so to speak. Then the way we see things is just the way things are. The mental model, once established, becomes embedded in our thought processes and from there on we virtually "fly" on automatic pilot. The well-known psychologist Carl Jung called such patterns of behaviour "cognitive schemas."² The physicist David Bohm refers to them as the "tacit infrastructure," i.e. the unexamined assumptions by and on which we operate. To be sure, such behaviour can under certain circumstances be useful, it, however, can easily be­come a rut leading to "banal, empty, arid rationality,"³ as, for instance, is apparent in postmodernism. Paradigms limit our thinking and often trap us into old patterns that no longer fit new circum­stances. It then reaches a crisis. Apparently our present one has reached that point, for it no longer solves problems the way it once did. One would think that changing a paradigm that is not working should be easy, unfortunately it is not. As Kuhn observed, the "paradigm" cause of the crisis re­mains invisible to old-paradigm practitioners. They believe that we don't need a new paradigm, we just need to make the one we have work better. There is nothing wrong with our system, since that would call the underlying paradigm into question. Instead, when things no longer work, some­thing must be wrong with people. "Blame certain people and label them troublemakers. We need more discipline, more restraints," in other words, what we need in a crisis situation is more and better management. As long as the old paradigm remains hidden, we will not recognize its role in creating and maintaining society and its institutions. When, however, we wish to bring the old paradigm to light, we need leadership not management.

The Mighty Machine←⤒🔗

Although the Western world over the centuries has experienced various shifts in world views, the one that concerns us here is the full implementation of the scientific world view in the so-called Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. This revolution, driven as it was by the urge to achieve domination, mastery and control over the natural world, required, among others, the elevation of the intellect (reason), the devaluing of experience (intuition) and the demystification of the natural world. As such it affected every aspect of society and its institutions. Education (leading out) became instruction (putting in), worship became word based, music became entertainment (amusement), human beings became human resources, raw materials that were (incidentally) human, etc. Leadership, the noble calling grounded in spiritual values of service, ministry and re­spect, became scientific management. The leader is the boss, everyone else does what he says.

Leave your Brains at the Door!←⤒🔗

That this, essentially mechanical, view of things would require a different type of "leadership" ought to be obvious. Scientific management, the brain child of Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915), was the answer. He took the traditional division of labour, between worker and leader, and gave us the "thinker" and the "doer." The "doers" were basically prohibited from thinking, from using their brains while doing their work as cogs in a machine. Management, from manus = hand, means to control by hand. Under scientific management, the "intelligent" hands of the boss became the hands of the workers (minus their brains). This being rather unnatural, a denial of man being creator in God's image, fear rather than love became the motivator for implementing the required adjust­ment.

Erich Fromm wrote that the "adjusted" person in the work world "is one who has made himself into a commodity, with nothing stable or definitive except his need to please and his readiness to change roles." To which French philosopher Francois Perroux added, "Slavery is determined neither by obedience nor the hardness of labour but the status of being a mere instrument, and the reduction of man to the state of a thing." A commodity; a tool. A slave, Aristotle said, is a living tool.⁴

Top-down management, as this type of management is often called, is based on a number of implicit assumptions which, not surprisingly, most of us hold as "cognitive schemas" or as "tacit infra­structure" of thought:

1. People, inherently bad, need to be controlled;
    
2. "Leaders" (the experts) are smarter than other people, therefore, they know better;
    
3. People are objects, a commodity;
    
4. Decision about and for them are made in their absence;
    
5. They need not be given full information, for they can't handle it. (They are essentially stupid);
    
6. Organizations and institutions work best when people are assigned to function in discrete (separate) roles with limited or no responsibility. Don't give the whole picture, keep them guessing.

Traditional leadership, with its roots in the turn-of-the-century practices, is further overlaid with the confinement of mid-century bureaucracies. In it the "leader" maintains strong control over prescribed functions and protects and constrains both the privileges of position and assigned turf. Such leadership includes:

1. control — enforces a prescribed way;
    
2. command — tells people what to do and prescribes the rules and conditions;
    
3. judgment — assesses behaviour and performance and metes out reward or punishment;
    
4. rule — harbors decision making as a privilege;
    
5. guard — protects its own turf.

The Upper Crust←⤒🔗

The familiar command-and-control "leadership" is, however, in crisis. Dr. Brienen puts it as fol­lows:

(People) no longer leave decision making in the hands of a small upper crust, but let it be known that they are to be taken into account. It is no longer possible to deal with them and decide for them in their absence. They have become aware of their own responsibility with regard to the life of the congregation and at the same time their calling with respect to the work of the church.⁵

Among the reasons for this change he notes:

1. a change in the view of man;
    
2. the accent on the 'voice' of man;
    
3. a renewal of biblical and theological study;
    
4. the coming into existence of a profound desire for security and relationships.

These changes require leadership not management. As a matter of fact management would be disastrous.

Amateurs Not Professionals←⤒🔗

According to Neil Postman, questions, definitions and metaphors are "three of the most potent elements with which human language constructs a world view."⁶ The answers to the question what leadership ought to be in a paradigm shift are multiple and confusing. That is, perhaps, due to the fact that we do not know the extent of the old-paradigm influence nor the certainty what the new one is or ought to be. It is, however, precisely under these circumstances that leadership is needed the most. So what is leadership? Here are some of the answers currently given:

1. Leadership is a means.⁷ It is not by itself good or desirable.
    
2. There are no leaders, there is only leadership.⁸ In other words, leadership is not something that a person possesses by virtue of birth, position or education.
    
3. Leadership is an action, not a word.⁹
    
4. Leadership is for amateurs not professionals. Amateurs (from amator = lover) do what they do out of love.¹⁰
    
5. Leadership is both following and leading.¹¹
    
6. Leadership is defined by the group it serves.¹²

Leadership then is a service to people performed in love. For this type of leadership Robert K. Greenleaf coined the metaphor servant-leadership.

The Tools of the Trade←⤒🔗

When the disciples bickered about who was going to be "leader" in the Kingdom, Jesus did not reach for his crown and sceptre and berated them for their childish behaviour. No, he strapped on a towel and filled a basin with water and proceeded to wash their feet. He showed them the meaning of true leadership. The towel and basin are not only symbols of the Kingdom; they are also the means by which something is done in it. They are our tools of the trade and we can do only do what our tools permit us to do. The tools we are given are the tools of a slave, it is the only trade we can and may practise.

Show Me the Way...←⤒🔗

The dictionary defines to lead as "to show the way." An announcement of the destination is not enough, the way is to be made visible; to be presented to view. The old paradigm (mental model) was about a product, a goal. The new one is about a process, a journey. Leadership on this journey asks for:

1. vision — discovery of the way,
    
2. inspiration — lighting the way,
    
3. support — encouragement on the way,
    
4. empowerment — enabling the way,
    
5. facilitation — smoothing the way.

On the Road to Jerusalem←⤒🔗

Liturgy is not only "the work of the people," it is also "being on the road to Jerusalem".¹³

In his gospel, as travelogue of God's Kingdom, Luke describes the way of the liturgy as a paradigm in his story about the encounter on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35).

1. First of all there is the community. Cleopas and his fellow travelers share their doubt and hope with each other and with the crucified Jesus, who appears to them and becomes their companion.
    
2. He opens for them the Scriptures, explains to them the messianic meaning of the law, the prophets and psalms and applies these to himself.
    
3. They in turn utter the primal words of prayer formalized as Vespers, "Stay with us."
    
4. The definite recognition breaks through in the breaking of the bread and the words of blessing that belongs to it.
    
5. This results in them becoming active in telling the story to others

So in one stroke the evangelist sketches the way of the liturgy.¹⁴ It is, therefore, not surprising that the old-paradigm model of liturgy no longer suffices. The changed character of work (the work of the people) needs a new model and it, in turn, requires servant-leadership.