Monday, March 15, 2010

here’s my current definition of leadership

I’m reading a great set of participant responses to the first set of Missional Church Leadership readings – thoughtful, honest, passionate, astute. I’m responding personally to each one and I just wrote the following:

leadership is being deeply aware of the gap between what is, and what is not yet, and having the courage to attend to the gap.

What do you think? Resonate with your experience?

Posted by steve at 09:25 AM

6 Comments

  1. That resonates with my own situation very strongly because non leaders would probably walk away. To me ‘courage’ is a core element of all good leadership

    Comment by Hamo — March 15, 2010 @ 7:26 pm

  2. doing what your doing hamo is tough stuff. it’s so tempting I think to dream of pure church and leave behind the “what is” in search of the holy grail, when theologically, it’s in the “now” and the mess that Incarnation comes.

    keep at it.

    steve

    Comment by steve — March 16, 2010 @ 7:41 am

  3. i like the now/not yet juxtoposition, but can’t help wonder if it could be:

    leadership is being deeply aware of the gap between what is, and what COULD BE, and having the courage to attend to the gap.

    yep: both noticing and being willing to work with are key leadership qualities

    Comment by lynne — March 16, 2010 @ 7:42 am

  4. i really like this definition. It’s so applicable to leadership in any context

    Comment by Linda — March 16, 2010 @ 9:09 am

  5. Thanks for this I’m going to send your definition on to our new leader, who is it seems a courageous person. Courage takes up energy.

    Comment by jane — March 20, 2010 @ 7:37 pm

  6. I think David Runcorn’s recent provocative article on leadership focussing on 1 and 2 Samuel is definitely worth a read. See http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=509

    Comment by Simon — March 23, 2010 @ 5:30 am

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