|
Read the
Full Review
Read the
Foreword
|
Future Leader - Introduction
What is the point in reading another book on leadership? A good question, which
needs to be answered clearly. My short answer is that you need all the help you
can get when you become a leader, and this book will give you lots of it. My longer
answer is that leaders are important people. If leaders don't lead well, then things
go wrong for lots of other people. If leaders do their job adequately, then all
sorts of wonderful, imaginative and successful things can happen. Most delight and
pain in our communities and organizations can be traced back to some leader or other
who either shaped us directly or indirectly. The leaders we have followed
either consciously or sub-consciously have had huge influence over what we think,
how we react, the friends we choose and the way we see the world. Leaders are very
powerful people.
How will reading this book help you to lead better? I think reading this book will
help you grasp some of the essence of leadership and assist you in answering key
questions like: What is intended to drive and motivate leaders? What are God's priorities
for leaders? What do I need to get into position if I am to lead well in the future?
I am going to introduce you to some great leaders and indicate what sort of leaders
we will need over the next ten years. Writing this has been a motivating, tough
and exciting experience, a little like leadership itself. Let me tell you my story.
Leadership fell on me in the summer of 1973. I had turned twenty-one years old in
March that year and, like many of the experiences of my life, the pain came a little
early.
I had just finished two years at a denominational college intending to produce pastors
and I was ready to go and lead a church somewhere in the United Kingdom. I was not
ready for what did happen. I was asked if I would go to a working-class suburb of
Manchester and plant a church on a housing estate. I could have said no, but that
was not the culture of the denomination so off I went to do the job. What followed
was a series of disasters, flukes, hilarities, excitements and wonders. It was like
getting on a roller-coaster ride but without the opportunity to get off in a few
minutes' time.
The 'church' I was to lead was intended to emerge from a tent campaign which had
taken place in the centre of the town. I was not able to be at this two-week event,
but it seemed to have gone well. Over a hundred people had indicated that they wanted
to become Christians, and my first job was to visit them. I began this work with
enthusiasm and enormous naïveté. I knew that not all of them had become Christians
but I hoped that fifteen to twenty had. Not for the first time in my life I was
over-optimistic. Many could not remember being in the tent, even though they had
signed the card I had in my hand. Many were glad to see me go because the encounter
was embarrassing; only one claimed to have become a Christian and she proved to
be unusual and quite invasive in her own blue-rinse sort of way. She eventually
settled for a mix of Jesus and Egyptian mysticism, which bewildered me.
I had John as a companion for a few weeks. He was rock-solid as always. We had to
sleep in the church, as there was nowhere for me to stay. I fell through the canvas
camp bed I was sleeping on, so from then on it was the floor. We did not have much
money and ate a lot of corn flakes and lettuce. It was a sad day when John left
and I knew I was on my own from then on.
Four people came to the first Sunday meeting. Two of them had a combined age of
about 160, and one of them was brought in by her husband, who promptly left. She
was suffering from serious multiple sclerosis. All those ladies loved Jesus with
all their hearts. I can still remember the appalling way we sang 'I Surrender All',
more like screeching tyres than worshipping Christians.
One family showed me a lot of love and kindness and eventually I went to live with
them. This was the beginning of a wonderful and fruitful relationship. Other superb
relationships developed, and slowly the church was built, mostly through weakness
and intensive learning. My sense of inadequacy was huge, but God was clearly in
the middle of the chaos of it all. Surprisingly, at least to me, leadership and
inadequacy became a clear theme in my twenties and still remains today.
Christian leaders are generally a collection of inadequates and most of them, I
think the best of them, agree that is so. This understanding of their predicament
is the source of their strength, flexibility and power. Why is this so? The Christian
gospel is full of paradox. The Christian leader is strong when weak, rich when poor,
an adult when a child and in control when not in charge. This is a contradictory
world which seems, at least at first glance, to be complete and utter nonsense,
a little like the gospel itself.
Our popular western culture insists that to be first is to be best and only those
who excel are able to become icons of our age. All who do not attain this stage
of excellence and domination are considered inadequate.
1 It is here that the gospel kicks in and insists that inadequacy
is the truth about us all. Even at our best we do not understand what is going on
around us. The most excellent among us are so for a short time only while their
skill or charisma lasts. Great Christian leaders grasp and embrace this, submitting
themselves to its impact.
The founder of Tear Fund used to tell the story of a nurse who left England and
went to work in Kampuchea. Within her first year she found herself on her knees
with a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush, cleaning a huge aircraft hanger. It
was to become a mortuary for the people slaughtered in the war. While she was scrubbing,
a government official came alongside her and said, 'I would not do that for a thousand
dollars.' She replied, 'Neither would I'! She had found something more fundamental
than being perceived to be the best or as having the most. She was learning to live
a submissive life, a life of giving to God, a life that was not negotiable.
The great Christian leaders are identified by the quality of their conversation
with God. When this conversation develops, you learn two things: firstly, you are
not much good at what you do; secondly, that's all right with God. He can cope with
the mess of having you around. The effect of this acceptance of your inadequacy
is to release you from the pressure to please the people you lead, because this
is usually impossible, and to throw you towards God's grace which is essential.
Our adequacy comes from the grace brought to us through our walk with God, and not
from the gifts or drive with which we may have been born. The paradox is this: Christian
leaders may be inadequate, but understanding this places them in a position of adequacy.
Stunningly, at least from a modern western understanding, it is the Christian Church
which has been the most 'successful' organization in the whole of human history
to date. 2
If this is true, then what is happening in the inner world of leaders, their 'inscape,'
is pivotal to how they lead. 3 Identity
comes out of relationship, and quality leadership emerges from both. It is also
important to understand how they see the world around them, their vision. The nature
of their relationships is crucial in understanding how they lead. Linked closely
with this is the way in which they seek to motivate the people around them and how
they respond to their various tasks. This is the scope of this book, and it is everything
I wish I had known in 1973. I think it is really unlikely that I would have understood
this, but at least I would have had something to place alongside my walk and talk
as a leader.
|