Heart & Soul
Marshall Shelley
July 1, 1997
Leading isn't easy for a servant. The problem was best described by Craig Barnes, pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.
"There was a day when we were clear on what it meant to be a leader," he writes. "It meant getting to the top of the organization where it was possible to run things. The great power that was attached to that model was easy to abuse, but it also made it easy to get things done, and it was obvious who was in charge.
"That form of leadership has generally been rejected for many years. We criticized the old bosses as 'hierarchical, top-down managers' and sought a new model of leadership that would empower, enable, and facilitate the aspirations of even the lowliest in the organization. For a while that sounded pretty good. In time, however, what began as a corrective has become something of a problem itself …
"Leadership has now come to mean satisfying the people. Pastors and elders spend enormous amounts of time and energy responding to complaints. It is important to note that this current infatuation with making people happy is not born out of any humility on the part of the leader. To the contrary, leaders are drawn into this new model because they are anxious about keeping power. Ironically however, those who only give people what they want find themselves not powerful, but enslaved by the competing demands of self-interest groups that cannot all be met …
"The hierarchical models of previous days may have been elitist. But this new 'I'm just here to give you what you want' model is even more dangerous, as the story of Aaron's brief fling with leadership and the golden calf illustrates … There has to be another way."
What is that better way? I suspect it's not ...
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