On Leadership and Servanthood

This is a post I have been putting off writing, partly because it will be long, and partly because in many ways I am tired of the subject — it seems to be getting in the way of so much I want in my life and relationships. But at the moment, it doesn't seem like I am able to avoid the subject.

The Language of Leadership

In our culture, the word "leadership" is utilized in a number of related, and yet very distinct ways. At one level, leadership is simply a task performed by one or more individuals that assists a group in self-organizing and accomplishing something. In this sense, leadership is a needed component of any group endeavour. How it happens or how it is exercised depends on the context of the situation, and therefore can take a multiplicity of forms. Some individuals have skills that permit them to perform this task in a variety of contexts, while others have skills that rarely lend themselves to fulfilling this role except in unusual circumstances. For the time, and in the context, that an individual performs the task of leadership, we call him or her a "leader". I have no quarrel at all with this conception of leadership.

However that is not the only meaning of the word leadership in our culture — indeed, I find that it actually rare in our culture to encounter this meaning alone, without overtones of other meanings. It is with these other meanings of "Leadership" that this post attempts to engage.

Just last night I heard a woman who was about to lead our group in a short devotional period express her discomfort with what she was about to do by explaining, "I am not a Leader." In saying this, she was expressing a conception of Leadership that was much more than simply the task of assisting the group toward an end — for she was certainly capable of doing that, and indeed proceeded to do that in a number of ways throughout the evening. Her statement had to do with a complex of concepts that our culture has subsumed under the idea of Leadership.

One of those aspects of this complex of concepts that make up the idea of Leadership is that Leadership is some "thing" that resides in or on those persons who are "Leaders" — it is an essential aspect of those individuals' character, makeup, or person. This produces the kind of divisional marker that makes sense of my friend's statement — some people possess this something we call Leadership and other people do not. It also makes sense of the kinds of discussions that go on concerning whether Leadership is something is primarily inate or primarily learned, and the degree to which Leadership can be developed in an individual; discussions that would make no sense whatsoever if leadership were understood solely as a task in a context.

Now it is possible that one could speak of the loose collection of qualities, skills, character traits, etc. that tend to be commonly possessed by those individuals who find themselves taking on the task of leadership (in my first sense) in a wider range of contexts than others (and hence, more frequently than others), and refer to that by the shorthand label of "leadership". We use this type of shorthand language all the time, and if that were simply what we meant by "leadership" in this personal characteristic sense, I would again have no particular quarrel. However, even if that was how the language usage began, it clearly has passed beyond that. Consider my friend's statement, "I am not a Leader", and how it would be understood if this were simply shorthand: "I do not possess enough of the particular skills, qualities, character traits, etc. commonly associated with leading to be one of those persons who takes on the task of leadership in a wider range of contexts than others." Would that have made sense of what she meant in the context in which she said it? I think not. It would have been akin to someone who had been asked to lead a group of preschoolers to the playground saying, "I am uncomfortable doing that, because I don't have the skills to lead an orchestra (or circumpolar expedition, or whatever)."

Like it or not, and whether we accept the truth of the language or not, the language of Leadership in our culture is inextricably bound up with the idea that it is a particular, even if difficult to precisely define, collection of personal characteristics that Leaders possess and that non-Leaders do not. And by extension we assume that only Leaders can / should take of the task of leadership (in the primitive sense) — a non-Leader may do so in a pinch, but things would go much better if a Leader did it.

This leads us to yet another aspect of the way Leadership is used in the language of our culture. That is the idea that Leadership is what is needed to solve the problems that we are in, whether those be problems in the workplace, problems in the family, problems in the schools, problems in government, problems in socio-political realities of all kinds, problems in ecological systems, economic systems, legal systems, whatever. Leadership is the thing that will bring peace, prosperity and salvation to our world. It is this belief that drives us to study Leadership (in the sense of personal qualities) so as to find a way to bring more of it to bear on our problems. It is this belief that drives us to try and develop more and better Leaders — because our problems are so extensive we cannot see how we can be saved without it. It is this belief that drives us to bestow upon Leadership language of trust, commitment, honor, praise, worth &mdash in a word, worship.

Following the god of Leadership

Leadership makes quite an enticing god, when you think about it. Leadership promises to solve all our problems — not just secular problems but also ecclesiastical problems. Even more important, Leadership offers us personal significance in holding out that "You, too, can be a Leader"; vaguely reminiscent of the serpent's promise, "Ye shall be as gods!" Even better, we can justify our devotion to Leadership on the premise that Leadership is a gift given by God. What could be wrong with that?

Of course, the sun is also a gift from God, as is the moon, the rain, the harvest, sexuality, etc., etc. Yet we know that worshipping these things is precisely anathema to the true worship of God — you would find no debate about that anywhere within christian circles.

Committing oneself to trust in and serve the god of Leadership is not something one does deliberately as a concious act of rejection of God. Rather this devotion is something that develops subtly and slowly, often under the guise of trying to do the work of building God's kingdom. In a way, you can see the same thing happening in the lives of Annanias and Sapphira — their devotion to money grew alongside the activity of using money to promote God's kingdom.

In my own case, I have spent almost my entire adult life in some form of formal church leadership. Had you asked me, I would have been sure that this work of leadership was entirely about following God. It was only when I experienced a major leadership clash in the context of a group of men who were equally convinced that their pursuit and exercise of Leadership was entirely about following God, and saw the effect that that interaction was having on my own soul, that I realized just how soul-destructive a god Leadership really was. How devoted I had become to the Leadership god became evident in the extreme difficulty I had in giving it up.

Prior to this experience, I had gone through a major surgery removing a cancerous tumour from my right kidney, and found it easy to trust God through it all. A few days into the recovery phase, the tube delivering the analgesic to the epidural tap on my back became dislocated. The result was not simply a loss of the pain control, but also the generation of something like fire running up and down my entire spine. There was some confusion in getting in touch with the pain control doctor, and so I lay in bed for what seemed like an eternity with this fire, not knowing what was really going on. One thought was that an infection had taken hold in the spine, which could do who knows what sort of permanent damage. I distinctly remember considering the possibility that one outcome could be paralysis, and I distinctly remember knowing deep within my soul that even if that were to happen, God would be there with me and that it was far far better to be paralysed with God than fully healthy without Him.

The reality of peacefully trusting God in that circumstance, in the circumstances of my parents' deaths, and in the circumstances of other health or life and death situations stood as a marked contrast to my inability to trust God with the leadership of the church. That is to say, I could trust God intellectually with the church, but that did not translate into the deep gut level trust I experienced with life and death issues.

What about servant Leadership?

It is a commonplace in church circles to say that "out in the world" Leadership may well be this dangerous and unGodly thing, but that's because the world doesn't pursue the right sort of Leadership. We, on the other hand, know that the right sort of Leadership is "servant Leadership" — a softer, gentler form of Leadership that is concerned with the well being of people rather than the aggrandizement of self that comes from position. We even quote Jesus in support of this idea:

You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:42-45 (ESV)

Unfortunately, I don't think the idea of servant Leadership works, at least not the way I hear it used in actual practice. Every christian Leader I have ever met has considered himself or herself to be pursuing servant Leadership. I know I did. But is the fruit of this Leadership really all that different in the church than in the world?

The language of servant Leadership is not unique to the christian community — it has its proponents in the secular business world as well. In that usage, it means adopting the guise of a servant, doing things for those whom you wish to lead, in order that they will in turn be more amenable to following you. It is not much different from the idea that if you treat your employees with dignity and respect, and give them freedom to work somewhat in their own way, they will work harder for you and therefore by more productive and more valuable assets. (This is sometimes called management theory Y in opposition to management theory X which postulates that people are basically all lazy and self-interested and must be constantly supervised, prodded and whipped — figuratively, or in some cultures literally — into action, or they'll do nothing.)

The problem with the idea of servant Leadership in this form is that it is still first and foremost about Leadership — it's about what sort of Leadership is more effective. Serving the people you lead is first and foremost about getting the desired response from them; along the lines of the adage "you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar". Of course we all know that it's not the flies' best interest which is in focus here.

The problem we have in using the Bible in this way is that we are asking the wrong question of the text. We persist in coming to the Bible already to committed to the idea that in Leadership we will find our salvation, and ask of the Bible only how best to engage in Leadership. What we ought to ask is instead something like "If we were to spend three years hanging around with Jesus as he is presented in the Gospels, what would we conclude ought to be our posture toward the people around us who are experiencing these problems?”

Jesus' upside-down Kingdom

I am convinced that if we let the Bible speak on its own terms, rather than coming to it to see what it might say on a particular subject we've already predetermined, we would come to the conclusion that Leadership is not what offers salvation, nor is Leadership something we ought to particularly aspire to. I am convinced that if we came to the Bible on its own terms, we would see that what Jesus says in passages such as the Mark 10 passage quoted above is not that we need to pursue a different sort of Leadership than do the Gentiles, but rather that we need to abandon the pursuit of Leadership entirely. Instead of aspiring to be Leaders, we become servants. Instead of serving others in order to get them to sign on to our agenda, follow us, and help us accomplish that for which we are Leaders, we simply serve them because they are in need.

Following Jesus in this way is not just about taking on the guise of a servant as a means to becoming a better Leader — it is about becoming a servant, period — just as Jesus does not come down from God in the guise of humanity but rather becomes truly human.

I am convinced that if we are serious about following Jesus, we will not engage in developing character or skills so that we can be better Leaders, but so that we can be better servants.

Can't we have both?

Do we really need to abandon all aspects of Leadership in order to truly follow Jesus? Is servanthood truly incompatible with Leadership? Or might we not be able to do both, be both servants and Leaders.

First of all, I will agree that being a servant does not prevent one from taking on the task of leadership in a particular context. Nor does it even prevent one from taking on the task of leadership frequently, regularly, in a host of varying contexts, if that is what is called at the time in order to serve to the best of one's ability. Indeed, to refuse to utilize the particular skills, traits, knowledge and character that one possesses when those are called upon in the task of leadership because leadership is involved is actually to refuse to be a true servant.

What I will insist upon is that it is not possible to truly be a servant if we self-identify ourselves primarily in terms of our Leadership qualities, or lack thereof. A servant must be prepared to serve where he or she is placed, whether that task is one of leadership or not.

The problem with allowing ourselves to continue to use the language of Leadership, as if it were something that distinguished Leaders from non-Leaders, and as if it were something that ought to be developed because of its capacity to solve our problems and bring salvation, is that we are inevitably formed by the language we use. I am convinced that we can no more habitually talk the talk of Leadership and remain unaffected by it than we can freely participate in the ritual worship meals in the idol's temple and not be drawn into fellowship with the demon that stands behind the idol (1 Corinthians 10:21). This is ultimately the view of my earlier post, Cleanse out the old leaven.

Following Jesus, then, must eventually transform our language, as well as our lives, so that not only do we no longer worship Leadership as a god, we now longer encourage others to do so by the language we use.

What then is my role?

So how do I then live in light of what I have just said? I cannot change the language of the culture around me, even that small bit of culture close at hand, simply by fiat. For one thing, it doesn't work, and for another, my attempts to do so simply pull me deeper into the whole Leadership mythology. Or else they tend to isolate me from that bit of community around me.

Nor can I avoid this whole language issue by withdrawing from it, for that would mean I would have to withdraw from the world. How then could I serve those around me? And yet simply ignoring the issue also pulls me in the direction I am convinced is destructive to fall into. At times I feel like exclaiming, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5, NIV

Oddly enough the following passage came to me as I stopped to take a break from writing this post:

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head. Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.

Ezekiel 33:1-9, NIV

It seems clear that God is telling Ezekiel that the prophet is not responsible for how the people respond to his prophecy. The prophet is only responsible for declaring the message God has given him. Perhaps, then, it is not my responsibility to transform the language around me, but only to give warning of the dangers it holds. That is indeed comforting — even a reprieve from the demands of the Leadership god which does measure its servants by results.

Yet there still remains the guarding of my own soul. I know far too well how easy it is for me to fall back into the trap of doing obeisance to the Leadership god, of taking the responsibility for providing solutions to the problems of the world around me onto myself as its servant. Is there anyone who will walk beside me in this struggle, and not invite me to join again the party in the idol's temple? Is there anyone who will speak the warning to me when I wander back in there, who will take my hand and lead me out? Or is it God alone who will watch over me?

Lord, it was you yourself who said, in the context of a world not yet fallen, that it was not good for man to dwell alone. How much I feel that at times like these. I know that you have been faithful in bringing the voices of faithful men into my life when most I needed them, even when that voice is my own from an earlier time, and I know that you will not fail in that regard. But it is such a tiring task to have those flesh and blood, here and now, fellow travellers the closest at hand not seem to understand the words I speak. How long must I bear the curse of Babel? Are not two better than one? For if one falls the other can lift him up. But how will one be lifted up if he is alone?

Lord, have mercy upon me, I pray.