Rethink Leadership:
Searching for a Christian Theology of Leadership for
African Contexts
Shelley A. Chapman and Patricia L. Ali
July 1, 2019
July 1, 2019
The Problem
For
decades, Christian leadership authors, teachers, and speakers have promoted a
paradigm about “leaders” and “leadership” that has come from the positivist, modern,
Western, (and often) business framework. This framework is reductionist, often
characterized by focusing on certain characteristics, traits, and competencies
of the “leader” who is supposed to cast the vision for the followers, who then
seeks “buy-in” from the followers, often by creating a sense of urgency or by
influencing them in some other way to see the future as they see it. At times, those
who espouse this paradigm have offered pithy proclamations such as, “A leader
knows the way, shows the way, and goes the way”[1]
and “leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less” (Maxwell,
2018, p. 3). This perspective can create a gulf between leaders
and followers, many times implying a posture of superiority over the followers
who presumably do not know the way and who must be influenced. An entire
“leadership industry” developed throughout the past 40 years with an enormous
proliferation of books, blogs, academic degree programs, training workshops, institutes,
seminars, podcasts, experts, consultants, etc., along with the monetization of
it all, and yet, it has not produced the type of leadership that has greatly
improved the human condition around the world (Kellerman,
2012).
This paper seeks to show the way in
which many leadership scholars and practitioners in the postmodern era have
moved away from the hierarchical, leader-centric (or hero-centric),
entity-based and reductionist model, while at the same time, some theologians
are also discovering a different way of conceptualizing the work of
“leadership.” Particularly, our position is that many Christians, throughout
the past 40 years, unwittingly put on the lenses of the modern era—valuing positivism—certainty,
empiricism, and linear ways of being, along with the Western business or
management paradigm, to look at the Bible in order to shape their understanding
of leadership. This paper argues for a timeout whereby Christians can step
back, reconsider the ontology (our way of being) and epistemology (our way of
knowing) of past ways of seeing the constructs of “leader” and “leadership,”
consider new ways of being and thinking about the phenomenon of the leadership,
hunt out and critique our own hidden assumptions (Brookfield,
1995), and take on the courage to be transformed in our
thinking by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) on this particular issue. Four
key distinctions are presented below to facilitate our consideration of
shifting the paradigm.
Distinction #1: Management Versus
Leadership
Before laying out the argument for moving away from
the leader-centric hierarchical leadership model, an important clarification
must be made. While some practitioners conflate the ideas of leadership and
management (see,
for example, Blanchard, Hodges, & Hendry, 2016), this is a misdirected approach
because the two functions are vastly different. Management requires certain
functions of planning and controlling in order to “do things right,” but leadership
has to do with “doing the right things” (Bennis,
2003). Coming largely from the Western business model, management
is needed in any organization to keep the organization running. Efficiency,
effectiveness, economies of scale, organization, etc. are all needed. “Management
is the equivalent of déjà vu (seen this before), whereas leadership is
the equivalent of vu jà dé (never seen this before) (Grint,
2010). Management is maintaining the status quo; leadership
is breaking free from the status quo (Heifetz
& Laurie, 2001). When managerial tasks (such as
maintaining the status quo, controlling, etc.) seep into leadership practice,
problems can occur. While there is an important place for management, the focus
of this paper is the work of leadership.
Distinction #2: From Hierarchy to
Mutuality
The leader-centric model has one or a few leaders at
the top with followers occupying varying levels within the organizational
structure. Most often, power is used over the people to persuade them to do the
bidding of the leader(s). That power could be negative and overt (“do what I
say, or else”), or it could at times be subtle and pleasant, but insidious. In
either case, the “power over” structure can lead to hegemony. It is the leader
or leaders who are deemed to be the ones who have the solutions to problems for
the people. For example, it could be said that throughout the past 40 years,
many African leaders viewed the masses as “children” who needed parental
guidance. “It was paternalism on steroids” (Cohen,
2015, p. 183).
However, people support what they
help create, and therefore, some people in leadership positions began to see
that “followers” needed to be more than just those being acted upon—or influenced—in
the leadership process. Rather than influencing them to do what they wanted, or
merely asking for the opinions of the followers (sometimes even as a pretense),
power needed to be genuinely shifted to the people. The actual work of
leadership needs to be given to the people (Heifetz,
1994). The world is far more complex today than when the
linear, top-down processes were crafted to get key results. With rich diversity
and interconnectivity—we know more than ever before—and the rapid exchange of
information and ideas that are ever changing—we learn faster than ever
before—the world moves at a much more unpredictable pace and manner. The top
leader(s) cannot be expected to have all the answers to such a complex and fast
paced world.
Rost
(1991) was one of the first leadership
theorists who called for a shift from hierarchy to mutuality. Since that time,
a genuine pivot has occurred in how many researchers and practitioners view the
construct of leadership. Some alternative approaches to thinking about
leadership that require mutuality are adaptive (Heifetz,
1994), relational (Cunliffe
& Eriksen, 2011; Uhl-Bien & Ospina, 2012), complexity (Lichtenstein
et al., 2006), collective (Cullen,
Wilburn, Chrobot-Mason, & Palus, 2014), humble (Schein
& Schein, 2018), and leadership-as-practice (Raelin,
2014, 2016b, 2016a). Henri Nouwen (1989) argues for Christian leadership to
be communal and mutual, and Parker Palmer (2000) proposes that the path of a leader
must be an inward, downward journey of self-discovery rather than the typical
upward trajectory people usually associate with ascending to leadership
positions.
As
Christians, we value the mutuality expressed by the relationality of the holy
Trinity (Grenz,
2004), and we believe it calls us to reciprocal
participation in communication and communion. Trinitarian perichoresis
describes the three persons of the Trinity as not merely existing equally and
living in one another, but also “bringing one another mutually to manifestation
in the divine glory” (Moltmann,
1993). As Africans, we also value the positive, communal
spirit of Ubuntu (Booysen,
2016), where we express and extend ourselves in the
“other.” Trinitarian theology and Ubuntu, together, lead us to a mutual and egalitarian
“power with” paradigm, away from hierarchical “power over.”
“Give
us a King”
However, despite the potential of
shifting to a greater sense of mutuality, many times, people wish for a hero
leader—one who will come and solve their problems. The Israelites pleaded with
God to give them a king to rule over them, despite the fact that God, himself,
wanted to be their leader. Instead, they rejected God as king (I Samuel 8:6-7).
At Jesus’s trial, Pilate proclaims to the Jews, “Behold your King.” However,
the Jews did not want a bloody, beaten, Savior with a crown of thorns to be
their king. The next words they uttered are some of the saddest in all of
Scripture, “We have no king [leader]
but Caesar” (John 19:15).
The point is that God, Christ, the
Spirit—the Three Persons of the Trinity—is to be our Leader. Theologian Scot
McKnight pointedly notes that there is one leader—Jesus. “Instead of seeing
myself as a leader, I see myself as a follower. Instead of plotting how to
lead, I plot how to follow Jesus with others” (2010). Jesus is the leader who
led through suffering and death of the cross and who sent the Holy Spirit to
inhabit and guide all those who seek to follow Jesus. He said to his followers,
“Do not let yourselves be called leaders or teachers; for one is your Leader
(Teacher), the Christ” (Matthew 23:10 Amp). This is a “colossal reversal” (McKnight,
2018) of the hierarchical, modern paradigm of leadership.
Some
Christians operate from the hierarchical paradigm but attempt to baptize it or
sanctify it by calling it “Servant Leadership” (see
for example, Blanchard et al., 2016; Wilkes, 1998). In truth, “servant leadership” is
not a Biblical term. It was coined by Robert Greenleaf who was a business and
management expert. He developed this idea after reading Herman Hesse’s novel Journey
to the East. On the contrary, Jesus never told us to be servant leaders. He
told us to be servants and slaves (Matthew 20:26-27). Jesus, himself, was never
called a Servant Leader. He was called a servant who would suffer (Isaiah 53).
Distinction #3: Technical Problems
Versus Adaptive Challenges
Ronald
Heifetz’s (1994) distinction between technical
problems and adaptive challenges is a critically important distinction
to understanding the work of leadership. Technical problems are those problems
for which we have answers. We can define the problems and we can solve them (e.g.,
a flat tire). Adaptive challenges are far messier, gray, complex, and in some
ways even undefinable. Root causes are not fully understood. Examples are
poverty, the lack of development for “developing countries,” ethnic conflict,
etc. Interpreting an adaptive challenge as a technical problem can be a very
serious mistake. “Indeed, the single most common source of leadership failure
we’ve been able to identify—in politics, community life, business, or the
nonprofit sector—is that people, especially those in positions of authority,
treat adaptive challenges like technical problems” (Heifetz
& Linksky, 2002, p. 14). When we do this, we actually make
it worse. Dambisa Moyo (2009) describes an example of this phenomenon,
that of pouring aid into countries in Africa that either goes to corrupt
leaders or that creates a culture of dependence.
Similar
to technical problems versus adaptive challenges are tame and wicked
categories (Rittell and Webber as discussed by Grint,
2010). Tame problems are resolvable through
unilinear acts. They have probably happened before. These types of problems are
more likely to be associated with management than with leadership, as are
technical problems. Wicked problems, like adaptive challenges, cannot be
removed from their environment, solved and then returned without affecting the
environment. These types of problems are intractable, and there does not seem
to be a clear cause-effect relationship. “Wicked problems require the transfer
of authority from individual to collective because only collective engagement
can hope to address the problem” (Grint,
2010, p. 18).
Understanding
this key distinction argues for the paradigm shift because one person or a few
people at the top cannot possibly deal with the complex, adaptive challenges or
wicked problems by themselves. They need to work with many people to begin to
imagine and construct new ways forward. If the “leader” maintains a posture of
knowing the way to go, without giving the work to the people to create a new
way forward, the organization, community, or group will likely suffer the
results of having technical solutions applied to adaptive challenges. Adaptive
challenges require the people to do the work; it requires them to challenge
their habits, beliefs, and values, to challenge the status quo (Heifetz
& Laurie, 2001).
Distinction #4: Leadership as
People/Positions versus Leadership as Processes/Practices
As noted above in describing the hierarchical
paradigm, leadership is most often conceived of being the people or positions
within an organization that are tasked with influencing the rest of the
organization toward a particular goal. In recent years, there still tends to be
primacy given to the idea of the “single, heroic, masculine, leader as a norm for
modern and effective leadership” (Crevani
& Endrissat, 2016, p. 24). Shifting the focus from leader
to leadership can foster a concept that decentralizes the work,
giving it back to the people (Heifetz
& Laurie, 2001). Leadership-as-practice (Raelin,
2016b) is a democratic, co-constructed, relational activity
in which power and processes are shared so that people can grapple with the
adaptive challenges and complex contexts with diverse perspectives. In recent
years, Christian theologians are tapping into the idea of including people
throughout an organization for leadership processes because of the theological
principle that all followers of Jesus can be filled with the Holy Spirit who
leads us, and they are all blessed with the gifts of the Spirit (Fitch,
2011, 2016; Hirsch & Catchim, 2012; Kinnison, 2016). Indeed, if we stop Spirit-filled
followers of Jesus from participating in leadership work, we do them a
disservice and we cheat ourselves from the contributions they could make.
Two
important ways to think about leadership as a process are relational leadership
and the “leadership moment.”
Relational
Leadership
The literature describes two different types of
relational leadership—entity-based and constructionist. The distinction is
this: a leader bringing one perspective, his or her own individual reality to
the leadership setting (“entity perspective”) versus a group of people who
bring multiple perspectives to the leadership work (“relational perspective”)
through which leadership is co-constructed (Uhl-Bien,
2006). The key difference is that relationships are not
simply the conduits to transfer knowledge or influence (I will develop good
relationships with people so that they will follow me). Rather, there should be
an ontological shift (to a new way of being), understanding that through
dialogue (Isaacs,
1999), new meaning can emerge—which is an epistemological
shift (a new way of knowing)—in the space between leadership agents (Lichtenstein
et al., 2006). The positional leader admits he
or she does not have the answers but trusts the process of conversations that
matter (Hurley
& Brown, 2009). As democratic conversation takes
place, new meanings can be co-constructed, finding novel ways forward into
complex domains. Therefore, leadership depends on the process of various
people relating to one another through meaningful dialogue to discover new and
emergent ways to progress.
The
Leadership Moment
Ladkin (2010) describes the process of leading
as a “moment,” not as a time related concept, but rather as a phenomenon.
Leadership, in the positivist paradigm, is an entity in and of itself, with
characteristics, competencies, and traits. It becomes a thing—an object, much like
a college course with a syllabus, a set of skills to implement, or the
blueprint for a building. However, the leadership moment incorporates all the
dimensions of what happens in the phenomenon of leadership experience, which is
very difficult to completely define or describe, much like transformation,
development, or even love. The leadership moment has multiple components that
all interact together, as noted in Figure 1 below. Rather than the linear
trajectory of the traditional paradigm, with the leader imposing a vision onto
the organization, here all four elements of leader (who can be from any part of
an organization at various times (Raelin,
2010), followers (Kellerman,
2007; Wambu, 2007), the unique context, and the
purpose of the leadership experience are all fluid, influencing each other with
various perceptions, interacting with each other. In this way, “leadership” is
harder to define or describe, but more mutual, nimble, powerful, inclusive, and
promising.
Figure 1
The Leadership Moment (Adapted from Ladkin,
2018)
Conclusion
This white paper sought to describe
the common and traditional paradigm of leadership and its deficiency for 21st
Century sub-Saharan Africa. Recent publications point to a shift toward more
mutual, relational, and process-oriented ways of being in doing leadership work
for Africa (Chinouya,
2007; Kiguli & Kiguli, 2007; Njogu, 2007; Wambu, 2007). We invite more organizations,
churches, and communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa to consider a new way
of conceiving of leadership. This paradigm shift includes distinguishing leadership
clearly from management, moving from hierarchy to mutuality, understanding the
difference between adaptive challenges and technical problems, and shifting from
persons or positions to processes in relationship through dialogue. Rather than
seeing leadership as an entity (from the leader’s one perspective), it can be
viewed as emergent from the fluidity of the interaction between leaders,
followers, the context, and the purpose. Therefore, leadership becomes co-constructed
toward a common purpose. In so doing, we believe we will move closer to how
leadership was taught by Jesus and is demonstrated through the holy Trinity.
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[1]
While this quote is widely attributed to John Maxwell in the public domain, no
citation could be found.