PART IV: A HIGHER LEVEL OF LEADERSHIP

Contrary to popular belief, effective leaders are not hard-nosed, cigar-chomping, commandeering, uncaring, individualistic, take-charge, lone wolves.

Rather – effective leaders are interdependent.

As a leader you are totally and dynamically reliant upon God and your fellow human beings for your well-being and continued existence. Nonetheless, you remain irreducibly distinctive, independent, and irreplaceable with even greater individual capacity, influence, and significance, finding the center of your existence and significance in God and others.

Occasionally, there have been leadership models that recognize that people are something more than programmable machines – that acknowledge that people, in fact, can think, reason, and are capable of judging for themselves – that it is not necessary for them to check their thoughts, ideas, and feeling at the door when they arrive for work – and that they don’t have to leave at the end of the day feeling like they have been treated like a number, or worse yet, a machine.

James Clawson's book, Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface,[i] is an encouraging step forward. Clawson argues that effective leadership must recognize that people are much more than programmable machines. People have an intricately developed, personal set of values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations (VABEs). Workers do not check their VABEs at the door when they arrive at the workplace. People, just like you and me, use their world and life views – their conceptual frameworks – to observe, describe, interpret, and make decisions about the world around them – and then act accordingly. Clawson argues that there must be a moral foundation to leadership that consists of four cornerstones: truth-telling, promise-keeping, fairness, and respect for each individual.

What a remarkable leap from the mechanical and dehumanizing approaches to leadership still prevalent in the 21st century!

But there's more. In the words popularized by the cooking icon, Emeril Lagasse, “Let’s kick it up a notch!” Let’s take Clawson’s “Level Three” notion to a "Level Four."

According to Clawson, "respect for the individual means believing that all individuals have some intrinsic worth and should be treated accordingly with courtesy and kindness.” Clawson illustrates this with the common Buddhist greeting, “Namaste,” interpreted as, “I respect the part of God that is within you.”

Clawson had it right – ALMOST. People do have something “divine” within. Effective leaders show respect for that “divinity.” But I suggest that the traditional Christian view of “imago Dei” kicks the Buddhist notion of namaste "up a notch – to a higher biblical view of leadership – The Genesis Principle of Leadership.

You were carefully and purposefully created in God’s image.You possess most of God’s attributes.You are responsible to be a bearer of these attributes in every arena of your life.And you have been given the Genesis Charge to lead.

Though distorted by sin, every one of your co-workers and subordinates possesses, in equal portion and capacity, the created attributes of God. It is your moral responsibility, as a leader, to recognize, cultivate, and help each other steward these created leadership attributes.

This is interdependence at its best - the beginning of effective leadership.

You are interdependent.

You are a leader.

This is the truth about leadership.

This is the Genesis Principle of Leadership.

Now go out and lead!

[i] Clawson, James, Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface, Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006, 2003, 1999.

Part III: Independent Interdependence without Codependency

As a leader you are totally and dynamically reliant upon God and your fellow human beings for your well-being and continued existence. Nonetheless, you remain irreducibly distinctive, independent, and irreplaceable with even greater individual capacity, influence, and significance, finding the center of your existence and significance in God and others.

Should you really be surprised that the quality of products and services decline when people are undervalued and treated like machines?

Contrary to popular belief, effective leaders are not hard-nosed, cigar-chomping, commandeering, uncaring, individualistic, take-charge, lone wolves. Effective leaders are interdependent.

This is a difficult concept for us rugged, individualistic Americans to accept, much less to put into practice. Leaders, true leaders, learned a long time ago that they can not be successful doing it their way. Even so, there is more to effective leadership than simply learning how to get along with others by attending team-building seminars, implementing participative management teams, or keeping up with the latest Japanese leadership fad.

Leaders truly understand that there is a complete, mutual, and dynamic reciprocity between all members of the team. It is this reciprocity that simultaneously increases organizational effectiveness while offering individuality and synergistic togetherness. Leadership is a perichoretic dance – a circle of shared life. It’s not all about me. It is independent interdependence without codependency.

The antiquated, individualized, independent, lone-wolf approach to leadership of the 1960s is reflected in too many of the current top-selling books and articles on leadership.

Far too many leadership books and articles being written today completely miss the vital interdependent dimension to effective leadership. There is so much more to leadership than identifying individual traits and characteristics, learning how one can exercise power, or building participative management teams. These kinds of approaches, though popular, fall far short because they do not tap into the ultimate depth and reality of interdependence. You become a truly effective leader when you become interdependent upon the people you are leading. Effective leaders are interdependent.

Pathetic Views of Leadership

Too many notions about leadership are based upon pathetically undignified (i.e. mechanistic) views of personhood. There is little to no willingness to recognize that people have rational minds and that they observe, think, value, and make judgments. Rather, the human mind is viewed as nothing more than a machine. Therefore, these machines are to be managed in much the same way one would manage any machine. “Machines” can be programmed to work in particular ways –in accordance with prescribed, engineered specifications.

Thankfully, these mechanistic approaches to leadership have been shown to be outdated and ineffective. Nevertheless, the scientific approach to management continues to be the driving force behind many leadership strategies promoted by today’s leadership gurus. Such depersonalizing approaches irresponsibly lead to the development of such things as policy manuals that attempt to force employees to perform tasks in narrowly prescribed, repeatable, machine-like fashion – all in the name of efficiency. As one employee told me, “We are not paid to think around here.”

Leadership by policymaking is the lowest form of human behavior.

Don’t misunderstand me, policies can be important. But, in my judgment, leadership by policy-making is dehumanizing and dangerous. Leading by policy-making is driven by the behavioristic philosophies discussed earlier on this blog. Such philosophies tend toward the devaluing of the individual and the undervaluing of the dignity and worth of each person as an image bearer of God. There is little to no regard for how people think, perceive, value, or process the world around them. Though this approach to leadership is antiquated and unproductive, the pressures of volatile economic, political, and global competition perpetuate its use by the illusion of repeatable production, consistent output, or increased productivity. We are beginning to witness the negative consequences of its use. Even as production has increased, the quality of goods and services has suffered.

So I ask you again – should you really be surprised that the quality of products and services decline when people are undervalued and treated like machines? Leading by policy making is the lowest form of human behavior.

You are interdependent.

You are a leader.

This is the truth about leadership.

This is the Genesis Principle of Leadership.

Now go out and lead!

LEADERS ARE INTERDEPENDENT: PART II

As a leader you are totally and dynamically reliant upon God and your fellow human beings for your well-being and continued existence. Nonetheless, you remain irreducibly distinctive, independent, and irreplaceable with even greater individual capacity, influence, and significance, finding the center of your existence and significance in God and others.

Lord of the Dance

Remember … the art of dancing holds the secret to effective leadership. Let me continue from last week …

There is a magnificent and transcendent picture of this kind of interdependence in the Godhead, the Holy Trinity. The early church fathers used the word perichoresis to describe the interdependent relationship of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Interestingly, this word, perichoresis, is the root word for dance. Perichoresis speaks about a deep interpenetrating relationship, a mutual indwelling, and a reciprocal interrelationship between the members of the Holy Trinity. The Trinity is significantly more than three distinct people who learned how to get along simply because they attended a team-building seminar together. There is a mutual relationship that is so deep and so complete that each person is completely in the other two – yet without coalescence, without losing any individual distinctiveness.

God the Father becomes even more distinctive as He completely interpenetrates God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; God the Son becomes even more distinctive as He completely interpenetrates God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; and, God the Holy Spirit becomes even more distinctive as He completely interpenetrates God the Father and God the Son.

Teach Me How to Twirl and How to Move

Andrew Stephen Damick captured this perichoretic portrait so wonderfully in his poem, Perichoresis. Again, don’t tell Sarah, but these words make me want to join the dance:

Perichoresis

O elegant and gentle Leader of the dance,

we do not know the meaning of each step

nor how to rightly turn this way or hold this pose.

Each spinning step or angled movement's twist

does sometimes give us vertigo here where we stand;

this mystery of how the rhythm's pulse

and how the music's lilt are tuned to only You

has caught us up, and we are overwhelmed.

O grace-filled, grace-bestowing Leader of the dance,

please teach me how to twirl and how to move;

please teach me how the song pervades each dancer's form,

these dancers who have learned to dance with You

throughout the ages of the song, the holy song

You sang in ages past to Abraham,

to Isaac and to Jacob and his Hebrew seed:

Now sing to me and give me, too, this life.

O Leader of the dance, this perfect partnership

of Leader and of led, of God and man,

this Incarnation's holy dance we see in You,

You now invite us to accompany.

This awesome dance, a truly cosmic synergy,

the interpenetration of us men

with Deity -- with Trinity! -- the universe

beholds and stands amazed and bows its head.

O holy Leader of this cosmic circling dance,

the union of both man and God is here

and imaged in the holy mystery of life

conjoined, a woman and a man conjoined.

He takes Your role as gentle leader, she as Church,

she follows him, and he must die for her;

their dance together joins the dance eternal now,

and in that human dance we see our God.

O Holy Trinity, Your dance eternal now

descends on us and consecrates our own,

the revelation here as Body and as Blood;

herein we taste the God become a man,

and men become as gods as David prophesied.

The Trinitarian rhythm has become

our own, to guide our dance, to grasp our hands and lead

us in the dance of stillness perfectly. [i]

What a magnificent picture of how you are to relate to others!

Did you catch the last line? The Trinitarian rhythm has become our own, to guide our dance, to grasp our hands and lead us in the dance of stillness perfectly. God created you in His image. As a bearer of His image, you, like each member of the Godhead, are interdependent. You were created with the capacity for a deep, mutual, interpenetrating, interdependent relationship with God and with others. You have been invited to the dance – even though you may not know how to dance. In this dance, you become even more distinctive in your responsibility to be a bearer of God’s image.

You are interdependent.

You are a leader.

This is the truth about leadership.

This is the Genesis Principle of Leadership.

Now go out and dance … lead!

[i] Damick, Andrew Stephen, Perichoresis, 2004.

LEADERS ARE INTERDEPENDENT: PART I

As a leader you are totally and dynamically reliant upon God and your fellow human beings for your well-being and continued existence. Nonetheless, you remain irreducibly distinctive, independent, and irreplaceable with even greater individual capacity, influence, and significance, finding the center of your existence and significance in God and others.

I Won’t Dance

Some people collect stamps; some collect rare coins; others collect antiques or baseball cards.

I collect experiences. My life’s album is a treasure chest of incredible, thrilling, “once-in-a-lifetime” adventures. Many of these experiences have been life-changing quests. I continue to have a zeal for adding even more pages to my collection of life-altering adventures.

However, there is one experience I have no desire whatsoever to add to my collection. I won’t dance! My wife, Sarah, is one of those tormented women described by Groucho Marx, who once quipped, “Wives are people who feel they don’t dance enough.” Sarah suffers great anguish because I won’t dance with her. Every fiber of her being yearns, desires, even aches, to waltz, polka, salsa, square dance, clog, even bunny hop at wedding receptions. But I won’t even slow dance. Privately, it grieves me to see the hurt in her eyes – but I just won’t dance.

I don’t have any moral or religious convictions against dancing. I’m sure that by now you are thinking that I am the perfect prude. But don’t misunderstand me – so let me shine more light on the matter.

The fact of the matter is – I simply can’t dance.

Every self-conscious fiber of my being rises to the surface. I feel exposed and naked. I just “know” that every single eye in the universe is riveted on me – pointing and snickering at me as I trip and stumble and jerk around the dance floor. My joints and muscles lock up. I end up standing, rigidly, in the middle of the dance floor – completely embarrassed and humiliated. It is at this moment that the words of the rock group, Genesis, play over and over and over again in my head:

I can’t dance, I can’t talk.
The only thing about me is the way I walk.
I can’t dance, I can’t sing
I’m just standing here selling everything.

But I Love the Dance!

Ironically, though, I enjoy watching others dance. I enjoy attending the ballet. I’ve even purchased front row seats to Michael Flately’s Lord of the Dance three times, so that I could fully experience, albeit vicariously, the classic tale of good versus evil, played out by perfect precision dancing, dramatic original music, colorful costumes, and state-of-the-art production techniques. I am amazed by the virtuosity of the dancers, who, it is estimated, complete 151,200 taps per show. I wonder how they can never seem to miss a beat. By the way, who had the time, energy, and keenness of eyesight to count 151,200 taps?

Indeed, there is indescribable beauty and elegance in watching a dancer reveal her soul through the movements of her body – dancing, as choreographer George Balanchine said, “…not because she wants to – but because she has to.” Nothing is more inspiring than watching people dance with energy, grace, and technical precision.

Yet, something more moving, more stirring occurs when dancers discover that they are not just good dancers because of their individual ability and technique, rather they become incredible dancers because of their passionate, soulish, interconnectedness with the other dancer(s). A dancer may be technically perfect individually, but when a dancer is partnered with someone else, when the dancers rely on each other to express a shared message, something more powerful, more graceful, more expressive, and more magnificent is created.

It is Magical!

Fred Astaire was a wonderful dancer, but when he danced with Ginger Rogers, it was magical! Such dancers are totally and dynamically reliant upon each other for their continued being and existence. The result is an artistic expression far surpassing anything they could create and perform individually. Such dancers have greater individual capacity, effect, and significance because they are mutually and dynamically interdependent upon one another. Simply stated, they are better together! As author Catherine Mowry LaCugna put it:

There is a mutual interanimation, dynamic reciprocity, and unsurpassable beauty between the dancers that can only be understood as an irreducible relational dynamic that simultaneously affirms both individuality and mutuality. [i]

Want to know the truth? (Please don’t tell Sarah) Deep down inside, I long to dance like this. I would dance, if only I could dance like this

Herein lays a profound secret to effective leadership. As the French dramatist, Moliere’ (1622) put it:

All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack at dancing.

To be continued next week …

[i] LaCugna, Catherine Mowry, God for Us, The Trinity and Christian Life, New York, NY, Harper Collins Publishing, 1992, p. 271.