Shifting Nature of Leadership

As I have begun reading Theory U I noted Scharmer's comments about leadership with interest. I have discovered in facilitating discussions with pastors that the paradigms for leadership are still rooted in the 80s and 90s. Whereas at least some in the business world are beginning to realize that new paradigms are needed, we in the church are still relying, for the most part, on older business models. In challenging pastors to look to the metanarrative of Scripture to guide our understanding of the way we are to lead, I find that Scharmer, though not guided by a biblical metanarrative, presents a way of leading that has correlation with a Scriptural perspective.

So I found this quotation on p. 20 of interest:

"Our old leadership is crumbling similar to the way the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989. What's necessary today is not only a new approach to leadership. We need to go beyond the concept of leadership. We must discover a more profound and practical integration of the head, heart, and hand -- of the intelligences of the open mind, open heart, and open will -- at both an individual and a collective level."

In heeding his encouragement to go beyond the concept of leadership I have been suggesting to pastors that we rediscover what we have been called to in the church by examining the concept of servantship to the same degree we have studied leadership (though we have primarily engaged leadership in terms of tasks and processes). I believe we will discover more deeply what we are called to than the concept of leadership ever can.

Roland