"Leadership as 'vision' has become another way of talking about exercising dominance and pushing other people around with your ideas...Vision has become a way of declaring dominance, of achieving alpha status and stats. Furthermore, 'vision casting' is most often nothing more than 'strategic planning' board games." (Leonard Sweet, Summoned to Lead)
"Show me a leader without vision, and I'll show you someone who isn't going anywhere." (John Maxwell)
"The leader's job is to keep the projector focused, to keep the "big picture," the overall purpose or vision of the organization, in view. (James Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge)
A few weeks ago, some pastors and I spent the day with Ed Stetzer in New York. By spending the day I actually mean spending most of the day before one of us (me) left to see Letterman...but that's a different story.
The day was spent talking about church planting and revitalization. At one point I got Ed to talk a little about his book Comeback Churches. What are some of the key factors in seeing churches come alive again that are currently in the process of slow death?
Ed said that the research told him exactly what he didn't want to hear. We are so sick of CEO-style leadership in the church, and all the pro-leadership propaganda, that many of us - including me - resonate strongly with Leonard Sweet's criticism of vision above. But contrary to what he wanted to discover, Stetzer found, "Comeback leaders agreed that having a clear and compelling vision was foundational in the transformation of their churches."
In New York, Ed said that the pendulum has swung too far the other way against vision. Don't tear everything down, Ed said, because you didn't invent it. The statement "Everything rises and falls on leadership" is true, even though our image of leader should be that of an orr-master - someone who sits up front and gets everyone to pull together - rather than as Superman.
I didn't enjoy hearing Ed saying these things, but I wonder if he's right. I'm so sick of strategic planning masquerading as true transformation, but I think I've caught myself going to the opposite extreme.
What do you think? Do we need to rediscover a model of leadership within the church that avoids CEO-type alpha leadership, but still makes room for vision? Has the pendulum indeed swung too far away from vision?
This is a very interesting post. And, I think you are on to something. I don't know of an effective leader who isn't a visionary even if the vision is to not be a visionary.
The question is how does one develop and cast vision? How much do we learn from Kouzes and Posner or Senge etc.
Perhaps swinging the pendulum away from vision, the pendulum needs to be swung away from one person's vision. I too resonate with Len Sweet's critique, but the problem isn't with vision it is with how the vision is brought about, who owns it and how it is used. Many churches are driven by and individual or oligarchical vision rather than a vision that has been achieved through dialogue and relationship among the body. I get the sense that things (in churches and businesses) are moving towards a flatter structure that maintains vision, but alters the processes whereby it is adopted, maintained and refined. Check out The Starfish and the Spider (www.starfishandspider.com) for an exploration of this idea.
Jon, bang on!
Darryl: Thanks a lot man. I just spent the last two Sundays introducing the new church vision. I agree that "Vision" can be a one person show that can be rammed down the throats of the congregation. Our church vision is the result of two years of prayer and hard work by about 15 people in the church. It will the church "guide" for the next three years and then we will revisit it.
PS: How was Letterman?
Bryan
Bryan:
Letterman was great. Gwyneth Paltrow was OK too. ;)