A question that I think about often is this: What does a new kind of leader look like in the context of the church and mission?
It is not an easy question to ask, much less answer.
Implicity, it may be a criticism of the "current kind of leader" that is in place in church and mission. It may be too reductionistic in assuming there is a new kind of leader that is needed to replace an old kind of leader. Perhaps there are many new kinds of leaders?
It is difficult to work with this question because the issue of leadership "style" is inherently involved. Maybe my preferred new kind of leader is nothing other than the preferred leadership style I have!
When we ask this question in its best and most authentic way, we are asking it in light of our larger context. What is the larger cultural context in which we are situation? What are the church and missional organizations like in that cultural context? What are those who lead those churches and missional organizations like? What is working? What isn't working? Why is it or isn't it working? What will work? Why do we think it will work?
The list of questions could go on, but this is the way to reflect and dialogue meaningfully about this issue of a "new kind of leader."
There are a number of books that have been useful for me as I think through the changing culture and the emerging organizational paradigms that are needed for effective ministry in those cultures and the new kind of leader who will lead in those emerging paradigms. Here they are:
The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church by Frost and Hirsch
The Sky is Falling: Leaders Lost in Transition by Alan Roxburgh
The Missional Leader by Roxburgh and Romanuk
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World by Margaret Wheatley
Those of us who are interested in developing leaders must do some hard work of thinking what a new kind(s) of leader may look like.
And then, perhaps an even harder question, how do we develop those kinds of leaders?
Let us know if there are some resources that are helping you think through the quetsions of new kind of leaders and how to develop them.
-BR
