One-way and multi-way leadership conversations

There must have been church leaders who had a sneaking envy of Tesco – the efficiency, the decisiveness, the way people obeyed orders, the growth and the aura of success. Tesco is now unravelling and we are seeing some of the consequences of that one-way leadership. According to a recent article, right to the top, people had to give good news about their departments or risk at least being humiliated in public, or fired. The most senior management were insulated from any bad news about what was going on, and isolated from any different ideas or new conversation which could have helped them change direction and develop anything new for their company.

MODEM is a hub where different ideas about leadership, management and ministry can meet, a space where those ideas can be discussed and played with, and a conversation as we work together on how those ideas can be improved, and how they can be applied in our own situations. Many of us are suspicious of anyone who tells us how to lead or manage. That is a one-way leadership conversation, and they do not know our situation as well as we do. It is completely different if we have the opportunity to take others’ ideas, discuss them and think them through for ourselves.

Our annual conference is a hub for such conversations. It gives us the chance to listen to distinguished speakers who have thought long and hard about what they are saying, and to talk to them and each other as we work through their ideas. This year we are enhancing that conversation by starting it before the conference and continuing it afterwards, all through the wonders of blogging. Not only does this mean that we can get our ideas going earlier and keep them going afterwards, but it also means that many more of us in the MODEM community can think together.

Even if you are unlucky enough not to be able to get to the conference, please join the conversation through this blog and help us all to get working on a multi-way conversation.

David Sims
Chair, MODEM
 

Control and Grace

[This originally appeared as the Chair's piece in MODEM Matters issue 27 in May 2014]

A favourite part of my daily diet is Richard Rohr’s broadcast email. In the last few weeks he has got me thinking more and more about the tragedy of Christians, or the Church, abusing religion to control people. Rohr frequently argues that this is the opposite of the grace of God, and that releasing ourselves from such control (which he calls ‘discharging your loyal soldier’) is an essential part of spiritual growth.

I think this is an interesting question for Modem as a community because the myth that ‘leaders’ can and should control others in their organizations is still widespread in secular organizations, and is still tragically fashionable in Churches. We can see church authorities in all denominations doing huge damage to the energy and effectiveness for the gospel of churches by confusing control with leadership. As Margaret Wheatley puts it, ‘In this chaotic world we need leaders. But we don’t need bosses’. Leaders, in her view, maintain clarity about the purpose and direction of the organization. Bosses control.

Can we, as a community, make a contribution to this?

 
David Sims, 

@davidbpsims