Contextual and Seasonal Leadership

The goal of these posts is to offer pragmatic help to leaders of churches and nonprofits. 

 

I have been fascinated by leadership models and organizational constructs for decades.

But here’s the reality: every situation and context is different. There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to leadership. For instance…

My history is an amalgam of widely varied experiences. I began as a musician, playing in cover bands in dive bars before I could even drive. I once played in a sweaty, windowless concrete building in Kentucky belonging to an outlaw motorcycle group called The Iron Horsemen (Google at your own risk). I think I was fifteen. After playing our contracted four 1-hour sets, just as we started to pack up, a very large man in leather sauntered up and said, “You boys ain’t finished yet.”

We played more sets.

Bands are typically hyper-democratic organizations. Decision-making is slow and consensus is critical; otherwise, the bass player may decide not to show up for a gig. That’s never good—the organization quickly breaks down.

Later, I worked at a commercial recording studio. These were the days when analog coolness was defined by a Studer 24-track 2-inch mag tape machine. This was a typical small-business structure: an owner/boss overseeing a couple of salespeople, a handful of engineers, a few people running duplicators, and a receptionist. The leadership structure was flat and required a different sort of skill set.

Then I joined a small church staff—first as a worship leader, then co-teaching pastor, then wearing many hats overseeing departments, and eventually serving as senior pastor with a staff of 120 people. Different skills are needed as management layers are introduced and operations become more complex.

After turning over leadership there, I co-founded an entrepreneurial consulting consortium with a friend. We now work with sixteen other folks to help churches and faith-based nonprofits get better. In this context, our leadership team recently took a hard look at how we were managing this growing staff of employees and subcontractors.

All of this is to say that leadership looks different from context to context, personality to personality, and season to season.

However, failing to periodically take a “come to Jesus” look at how the organization is working—its functionality, its culture, and what we might call its “architectural integrity”—is a failure of leadership.

It begins with two uber-basic questions:

(1) What’s our business? and (2) How are we doing? 

When was the last time you asked yourself and your team those questions? 

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group

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