This has been a time of rich new images for me. Circles, dances, gardens, and webs have all stretched my mind. One image that has invaded my reading with a power and force that begs sharing is boating. Like the others, it is one that I don’t have much practical experience in. Therefore, it is somewhat presumptuous and humbling to use it as a central metaphor. But in the spirit of a summer adventure, it seems worth the risk.

This seems fitting because I am writing about leadership at a frustrating time in my life. I don’t feel particularly like a leader at home, at work or in church. In fact, there is more for me to learn than there is for me to offer on leadership. Yet I don’t want to aspire to a false humility either. The subject fascinates me. I believe it is an important one for Seekers at this time in its life. And I want to get better at it.

Leadership: A Discussion Paper

Ronald Arms

September 1997

Servant leadership is a Church of the Savior theme. The school on Columbia Road carries that name. Our School of Christian Living shares a common heritage with it. Robert K. Greenleaf is one of the most influential thinkers on this subject in recent times. I’ve heard Peter talk about him so often, I feel like I knew him. I felt I should explore his life and writing for this paper. He stated that one of the key events in his life was the realization that he had to start preparing for a useful old age. Before he died, he wrote his own epitaph, which reads, "Potentially a good plumber, ruined by a sophisticated education." As a 66 year old he wrote the essay entitled Servant Leadership that many have called the only thing one needs to read on the matter. Some say he was smart enough to wait until he had something to say before putting anything in writing. He spent most of his life working for AT&T, where he called himself a kept revolutionary. In this essay from which Seekers takes its name, he cites Church of the Savior as one of the practitioners of this style of leadership.

Greenleaf speaks of leadership as a forfeiture of rights. He provides two measures of success for servant leadership. The first is this: will people become healthier, wiser, freer and more likely themselves to become servants? And secondly, we best measure it by what the least privileged in society achieve. Servant Leadership explores the bumpy border between order and chaos, where life has enough stability to sustain itself and enough creativity to deserve the name life. As I examined the bibliography of his latest collection of writings, On Becoming a Servant Leader, the very first book listed is Peter Block’s Stewardship.

Some of you will recognize this paper began in a class on decision-making in the School of Christian Living several years ago. Peter Block argues stewardship is a term that we should use in place of leadership because it moves us from patriarchy to partnership. While most receive their first uneven and imperfect lessons in leadership from their parents, we all need to grow into becoming partners. This process moves us from seeking power over others to using power with them. He defines stewardship as accountability without control. This call for partnership reminded me of the priesthood of all believers. Probably by association the stewardship of all participants emerged as a phrase that captured much of what I was wrestling with then. The struggle continues. It has been a slow and rich process. I want to work some more with it in this discussion paper.

I’ve experienced resistance on the part of some at Seekers to the idea of accountability without control. At times I find myself wondering if Block is really on target with this phrase. Our heritage and our process seem to suggest that accountability is what gives control. Perhaps Block’s definition of stewardship is too democratic, and there is a strange suspicion of democracy amongst us. Democracy is not in the Church of the Savior tradition. On the other hand, many of us seem friendly to the concept of servant leadership. There is a Biblical ring to this formulation that makes it more attractive. Perhaps working with these concepts in tandem they can enrich each other. Together they invite us to stretch our minds and our hearts around possibilities of leadership that few practice, let alone imagine.

This is not to criticize the way we do leadership now. Already our leadership team and leadership practices suggest we have left many of the traditional ways of thinking about this subject where they belong. It is easy to be self-congratulatory on this score. Sonya, Peter and Kate each exercise gifts in our midst that balance gender concerns, evoke the participation of many and invite us to collectively shape our future. The priesthood of all believers often comes to life in our midst. But the likelihood that we will need to reconsider how we work with this sensitive, and important issue in the not too distant future invites a further exploration of the subject. We have the luxury of doing so from abundance and strength with time, rather than from lack and need in a crisis. It is in this context that I want to explore ways that the priesthood of all believers might take us to the stewardship of all participants.

As I prepared for this discussion paper a number of boating images flooded my reading. Several of them are metaphors that offer interesting insights on the subject of leadership. Initially I simply wanted to offer a collection of these as a basis for our discussion. Feedback from my mission group suggested I think harder. Charles Handy, in his The Age of Paradox, distinguishes between the old-fashioned "follow me" type of leadership and what he calls distributed leadership. It is this image that provides some ways in which the stewardship of all participants and servant leadership might inform each other.

"I inadvertently got a glimpse of what this might look like when I facetiously compared an English team to a rowing crew on the river: ‘eight people going backward as fast as they can, without speaking to each other, steered by the one person who can’t row.’ I thought it rather witty, but an oarsman in the audience corrected me: ‘How do you think,’ he said, ‘that we could go backward so fast, without communicating, if we were not completely confident in each other’s competence, committed to the same goal, and determined to do our best to reach it? It’s the perfect prescription for a team.’

"I had to agree that he was right. But then I asked, ‘Who is the leader of this team?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that depends. In the race, on the job, it is the little person in the back of the boat, the one who can’t row, who is in charge. He, or often she, is the task leader. But there is also the stroke, who sets the pace and the standard we all must follow. Off the river, however, the leader is the captain of the boat. He or she is responsible for choosing the crew, for our discipline, and for the mood and motivation of the group, but on the river the captain is just another member of the crew. Finally, there is the coach, who is responsible for our training and development. There is no doubt who is the leader when the coach is around. We don’t have any one leader,’ he concluded, ‘nor do we give anyone that title. The role shifts around, depending on the stage we are at.’"

In this story teamwork provides a basis for authority. The authority flows from what the team is doing. This is not power that comes from above or from position, rather it is power that is granted by those with whom it is exercised. The community is the source of authority. Here power is not something one does to another, rather it is an exchange of energy between or among people. This is the heart of servant leadership. There is a forfeiture of rights so that others might grow and learn. This exchange delinks authority from commitment so that both can become shared attributes. This is at the heart of the stewardship of all participants. Accountability no longer is a path to control. It is now possible to be accountable without having to be in control. Having accountability in common it is possible to share control. Shared control and shared accountability build community. Perhaps the challenge to Seekers is to discover ways in which to separate accountability and control. And in separately sharing them, the boundaries of the community may expand in ways that allow others to grow and learn, and support the achievements of the least privileged.

Distributed leadership is like the Japanese idea of a horizontal fast track. Asked whether there is a fast track to responsibility for the best and the brightest in the midst of Japan’s traditional business world, a Japanese manager put it this way. " We move the better people around the organization as fast as we can in their early years, exposing them to different areas, different groups, and different responsibilities. That gives them a chance to discover themselves and to demonstrate their strengths."

Perhaps servant leadership and the stewardship of all participants make a horizontal fast track possible in Christian community. They invite every one present to discover themselves and demonstrate their strengths and their weaknesses.

We each bring strengths to our do it yourself adventure. Like a well-trained crew, our leadership will depend on the circumstances. Sometimes it will be the small person in the back of the boat who doesn’t know how to row. Sometimes it will be the stroke, sometimes the captain, and sometimes the coach. Our participation in this community should be viewed as an invitation to experience different aspects of the organization as fast as we can in our early years. Exposing ourselves to different areas, different groups and different responsibilities will give us a chance to discover ourselves and demonstrate our strengths. Ours is a community where a distributed leadership may very well offer the model for the future. It is a horizontal fast track that draws on the skills, the abilities and the gifts of each and all of us.

These discussion papers have made it possible for me to share much of my reading and writing. Our open pulpit has enabled me to grow as a preacher. Classes in the School of Christian Living support and encourage my continued growth. Repeatedly, this community has invited me to discover myself and develop my strengths. I trust Seekers does this for you too. Of course, we also bring our weaknesses. Jesus practices a boundary breaking inclusivity that uses the total complexity of the human condition as a basis for hope. He knows that sin like sewage is a built in characteristic of the human condition. So he provides us with backwardness training. He reminds us authority is not earned and grace is seldom deserved. The gifts of forgiveness and inclusion, which make community and teamwork possible, remain the generous contribution of a gracious God. No matter our competence, commitment and determination, in the final analysis there are forces larger than any of us at work and at play in leadership issues.

As Greenleaf notes, "Anyone could lead perfect people, if there were any. The real challenge is to learn to develop the imperfect people we are." Servant leadership addresses imperfection. For me this means asking whether I’m willing to acknowledge my vulnerabilities and fears. Am I willing to give up the security and safety of an outsider? Am I willing to turn community from a noun into a verb? My answers to these questions are evolving, but I suspect that if servant leadership is going to lead me to the stewardship of all participants I will include name and learn to work with my weaknesses as well as my strengths in community.

My favorite Greenleaf story is this one: "Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journal describes a particular ‘power’ incident. One day he and his son were trying to get a balky calf into the barn. One was in front pulling on a halter, and the other was pushing from behind. The calf had its legs splayed, and for all practical purposes was immovable. A servant girl watched with some amusement from the kitchen window. When the Emersons gave up, she came out, stuck her finger in the calf’s mouth, and walked into the barn with it. Emerson went to his study and recorded the event in his journal with the concluding comment, "I like people who can do things." I would add to this comment: There are ways to do most things without the overt use of power; valuable energy and time are often wasted trying to do with such power."

This is a leadership parable for me. So often I’m tempted to push and pull in the name of leadership. If I get the arguments right, if I preach the right sermon, perhaps I can find ways to transform the priesthood of all believers into the stewardship of all participants. Often I push and pull at the wrong end and in the wrong place. But a servant can show us how to put a finger in the calf’s mouth and lead it to the barn if we will let her. Stewardship allows servant girls to show us what they can do.

These images invite me to rethink the ways in which I participate in Seekers. They challenge me to abandon the positions of cynic, victim and bystander. They give me permission and command me to attempt the difficult with hope. Peter Senge drives this home in one of his recent books on management,

"Among the tribes of northern Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, equivalent to ‘hello’ in English, is the expression: Sawu bona. It literally means, ‘I see you.’ If you are a member of the tribe you might reply by saying, Sikhona, ‘I am here.’ The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It’s as if, when you see me, you bring me into existence.

"This meaning, implicit in the language, is part of the spirit of ubuntu, a frame of mind prevalent among native people in Africa below the Sahara. The word ubuntu stems from the folk saying, ‘A person is a person because of other people.’ If you grow up with this perspective, your identity is based upon the fact you are seen–that the people around you respect and acknowledge you as a person." A leader is a leader because of followers. We are each leaders, servants, participants and stewards when the people around us respect and acknowledge us as such. Then we can concentrate on what it takes for others to grow and learn. Then we can focus on what the least privileged in our society can achieve. In so doing, leadership becomes a privilege we all share.

As Lao Tzu puts it,

A leader is best

When people barely know that he exists

Not so good when people obey and acclaim him

Worst when they despise him.

‘Fail to honor people, they fail to honor you.’

But of a good leader, who talks little
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled

They will all say, "We did this ourselves."