MARCH NEWSLETTER ~ LETTER TO THE CHURCH

Dear Friends in Christ,

A recent Alban Institute article said that, in the book Leadership without Easy Answers, author Ron Heifetz sheds light on the differences between authority and leadership. Authority is a legitimate power to make things happen.

Check-signing authority, for instance, is the power to compel the bank to release funds. The right to direct the work of others, to hire and fire, to sign contracts or to choose sermon topics— all these are examples of formal authority.

Authority can be informal also: when some people speak, others listen. (Jesus “spoke as one with authority.”) Whether authority is acknowledged or not, whether authority is formal or informal, authority is actually something given to some by others. It is, hence, allowed or recognized or delegated.

Leadership, as Heifetz defines it, is quite different. Leadership is not a personal trait, but an activity: getting a whole group to address its most important challenges. Leadership is measured not by whether those with authority, those who wield authority, get their way. Leadership is measured by how well resources are made available to those who need them and by how those resources are brought into play to influence crucial questions.

Clearly, authority can be a help to leaders, giving them the right to convene meetings, name issues, and hold the group’s attention. But the expectations that accompany authority can also be a hindrance when leading. After all, people do not usually grant authority and then hope they will be invited into hard conversations by those in authority! Certainly a prime reason authority is granted is to eliminate ambiguity.

But leaders supersede authority. How? By inviting groups to ponder troubling questions. Managers, you see, can calm people by resolving ambiguity. Leaders refuse to allow for decisions made with too much haste. Leaders get involved in what can only be solved slowly. Further, the most important, real life challenges are too big for individual decision makers, for those in authority, to address alone. And that’s where leaders can come to the fore in an effort to bring the whole group’s gifts to bear.

This is a surprise to some, but leadership can be offered by anyone (from any pew in the church!). Anyone can lead. The standing possessed by those in authority is not a prerequisite for exercising leadership.

So, which situations call for authority and which for leadership? One consideration is the nature of the challenge to be faced. If the furnace breaks, it must be repaired. The congregation needs to authorize someone to pick a contractor and spend money pronto. That’s an example of authority granted to an individual or a committee.

Leadership tackles more thorny problems. The concern of leadership is to move a congregation through processes which require new behaviors— adaptation. For instance, a once-successful program that no longer attracts participation and a cross-section of good heads to take whatever time is needed to cook up a fresh vision of ministry. Speed and decisiveness do not come into play.

A second factor in deciding whether to use authority or practice leadership is the amount of ability to adapt available in a specific group. A “broken” ministry may be fixable simply by replacing one of the moving parts— a committee chair? a staff member? — but that is probably also the easy course. Perhaps root causes need to be examined.

Sometimes a real deciding component often comes down to the fact that even the strongest congregations can deal with but a few (at most) adaptive issues at a time. And there are many congregations which have no “bandwidth” for adaptive leadership at all.

The temptation to quick fixes is nowhere greater than in the fields of money, property, and personnel. A deficit, at one level, is merely a problem in arithmetic: expenses exceed revenues. The problem can be fixed by lowering one, raising the other or a combination.

Looking at a deficit this way leads us to ask questions of authority: ‘Who can cut spending?’ ‘Where can spending be cut?’ ‘What fund-raising methods will induce greater giving?’ These are the ways authority can come to a resolution of issues but not the kinds of resolutions which come about because of leadership.

A deficit invariably points beyond itself to deeper issues. Perhaps the issue for the congregation is in still trying to engage people in outdated concepts of membership. Perhaps membership clings to a style of congregational life that no longer fits the values or lifestyles of potential members. Or there even may a reluctance to accept leadership roles.

Questions like these deserve the sustained attention of a varied group of leaders, information and a time for conversation, prayer, reflection, and decision. Who will do this?

As already stated, leadership can be offered by anyone (from any pew in the church!). Anyone can lead. Leadership can emerge from ad hoc planning teams, from voices crying in the wilderness, even from the mouths of babes.

Our church is rooted in the Congregational tradition. As such, one of our bedrock premises is this: we are all called to leadership. Each of us is called to a leadership role. We are called not so much to be church members as we are called to be a church filled with leaders.

And, oh, yes..... I’ll see all you leaders in church.

In Faith,
Joe Connolly