BRILLIANT ANSWERS ONLY

“Unmasking Hidden Assumptions in Leadership Theories” (Adapted from Dr. Guy Saffold, Theology of Leadership, TEDS)

1. Naturalism:

“Every worldview has to begin somewhere—God or matter; take your choice. Everything else flows from that initial choice.” (Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcy, How Now Shall We Live, 96) • Essence of Naturalism (materialism): At its root naturalism involves viewing the world as a

closed natural system (God doesn’t exist or matter; natural objects are the only things that exist; natural causes are the only things that happen; non-natural explanations are superstition).

• Consequences of Naturalism:

• Doesn’t admit God’s activity in the world • Undervalues human beings • Fails to take into account effects of sin (causes: bad education, poverty) • Overlooks the reality of evil (no enemy of God) • Encourages moral relativism (only basis for making decisions is what one prefers) • Naturalism disconnects a ministry leader from God and spiritual reality, leaving the

leader: • adrift from God’s guidance; • cut off from His life-giving power; and • attempting the hopeless task of producing spiritual fruit through natural means.

• Unchecked naturalism eventually replaces and ultimately destroys faith, the single most important quality a ministry leader can have.

• Naturalism and Leadership

Perspective People Leaders Followers Leadership Naturalism Bias toward consideration of only “natural causes” in analyzing leadership.

Material world is all there is. Events are explainable by material cause and effect.

People are merely natural objects. Human nature is neither good nor bad but neutral.

Leaders are humanly gifted and trained people who succeed or fail based on their skills.

What followers do is determined largely by the actions of leaders.

Leadership works primarily through influence and psycho-social processes.

2. Functionalism:

“The functionalist paradigm, firmly rooted in the models and methods of natural science, is highly ‘utilitarian’ and has a long tradition of implicit managerial bias. This bias, though not an inherent characteristic of the paradigm, per se, is a natural offshoot of its over-riding concern with generalization, prediction, and control.” (Appa Rao Korukonda and James G. Hunt “Promises and Paradigms in Leadership Research” Journal of Organizational Change Management 4 (1991): 24. • Essence of Functionalism

• You need to be effective; more effective is better; effectiveness is rooted in skill; people’s actions are driven by functional needs.

• Consequences of Functionalism

• Functionalism disconnects ministry leaders from: • the importance and priority of character • the need for spiritual formation, and • the motivations of the Spirit.

• Functionalism turns ministry leaders into “ministry technicians” trying to apply techniques rather than living lives directed to godly love, service, worship, and devotion.

• Functionalism and Leadership

Perspective People Leaders Followers Leadership Functionalism Bias toward goal achievement as the essential work of leaders.

The highest values are productivity, results, effectiveness, and efficiency.

People are motivated by hierarchy of need, form organizations to help them satisfy needs.

Leaders influence others, control activity, and evaluate outcomes.

Followers exist to do the work that leaders determine and organize.

Leaders make decisions rationally, leadership is linear and technocratic.

3. Individualism:

“The heroic bias . . . is a view of events in which great men and women dramatically influence outcomes as a result of their bold decisions, ingenious insights, and personal charisma, energy, and courage—powerful, dynamic individuals who command victorious armies, direct corporate empires from atop gleaming skyscrapers, or shape the course of nations. . . When a correlation is found between leadership behavior and unit performance, the results are interpreted as showing that the leader influenced the followers to perform better.” (Gary Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, 431)

• Essence of Individualism

• Individuals should be as free as possible to pursue their own destiny and unique personal vision of life.

• People vary in personality, ability, and characteristics, but most people are “average” in their characteristics.

• Strong individuals suppress doubts, make bold decisions, and hide vulnerabilities from others.

• Individuals take precedence over communities. Communities should not suppress individual rights and should get done what leaders want done.

• Outcomes are usually best explained by referring to the actions of single individuals or a few individuals.

• Consequences of Individualism

• Individualism blinds ministry leaders to: • the contributions of others; • the importance of community; and • the power of the unified Body of Christ.

• Individualism encourages an exaggerated view of one’s own importance, leading toward arrogance, lack of accountability, and burnout.

• Individualism and Leadership

Perspective People Leaders Followers Leadership Individualism Bias toward understanding leadership as the “heroic” work of unique, powerful individuals.

Events are best explained by analysis of the actions of individuals.

Stratification of people into hierarchies is inevitable and normal.

Leaders have higher status, privileges, and skill whose contribution is essential to progress.

Followers have lower status than leaders. Follower not as desirable as the leader.

Leadership primarily personality, charisma, influence, authority, and power.

4. Relativism:

“The danger...is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to [teaching]. Openness—and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings—is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think that you are right at all.” (Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind)

• Essence of Relativism

• There is no ultimate basis for derivation of moral values. • Claiming one’s own values as higher values undermines the dignity and rights of others. • Value choices are ultimately individual. It is wrong for some people to make choices for

other people. • Overarching “metanarratives” reflect the attempt of powerful elites to dominate others.

• Consequences of Relativism • Relativism blunts the sensitivity of ministry leaders to:

• the importance of godliness; • the imperative of moral purity; and • upholding high ethical standards.

• Relativism leaves you at risk of manipulation, exploitation, and even serious moral failure.

• Relativism and Leadership

Perspective People Leaders Followers Leadership Relativism Bias against fixed values including judging one set of values superior to another. Value blindness.

Ethics are socially constructed and materialistic. There are no universal ethical principles.

Human worth has no fixed anchor. Human value is relative to judged usefulness or desirability.

Leaders are special people who have different and often greater rights than others.

Followers have limited moral claim on leaders. Followers’ values are merely one perspective among others.

Utilitarian, goal achievement, organizational effectiveness as the highest values.

5. Grid Thinking and Grid Living:

• excludes from leadership God’s activity and God’s voice, the most important elements of reality;

• diminishes the significance of leaders, followers, and, in general, all human beings. • vastly exaggerates the importance of leaders; • rules out any ultimate moral and ethical principles, draining leadership of most moral content; • used as a starting point, explicitly or unconsciously, can never lead to capturing God’s

perspective on leadership.

“Unfortunately, there is a deeper, more subtle, and far more dangerous hazard, and it is that those of us who do have a faith in God, prayer, and the supernatural world will begin to minimize its importance in our practice of leadership . . . As we immerse ourselves in the literature of leadership, awareness of [these biases] may gradually fade from our mind. Then even though we continue to reject their specific presuppositions . . . [their] attitudes, preferences, thought patterns, and habits begin to influence us heavily. Perhaps without even being aware of it we begin to think of leadership largely as planning, organizing, controlling, motivating, reporting, and all the other things the books tell us are important to leadership. . . As this process progresses, our capacity for truly godly leadership becomes impoverished. The divine factor in leadership seems less significant to us.” (Guy Saffold, Buckets, Blind Men, and Tigers, unpublished)