Theology of Credible Leadership - Lesson 14

Dr. John Johnson
Theology of Credible Leadership
Prepare, Adapt, Engage
Lesson Transcription

Some years ago, I was in a library in Beirut. I was thinking about a writing project, and, I began to think a lot about leadership and think about theology. And, so I wrote this book, sometime, back, not because the world needed any more leadership books. It seems to be stuffed, saturated, if you will, with leadership books. But seemed like what was missing was there was this, barrier, if you will, this gulf between leadership as we largely read it in books that we get at stores or Amazon or whatever.   

And theology almost like a bit of a tension or a war if you will, between the two. Because when I would look at these books, as I have mentioned, and look in the indices or the table of contents, I, I could well almost never find anything about God or, or theology.   

And in a similar way, when I would look at, many of my theology, books and look at what theologians have done, it was rare, if ever, to see anyone address the issue of leadership. So part of what we've been doing along the way in this course is to bridge, if you will, these two, these two disciplines, discipline of leadership, discipline of theology to say, actually, there's a lot to be found here in the center that we need to look at.   

If you're like me, I find myself with almost a sense of, of betrayal, if I could put it that way. With a lot of present leadership. I feel like leaders have betrayed us in many ways. I sometimes almost come to a place of disgust, even watching the news this morning and looking at present leadership in our, our nation as an example, I just shake my head and I ask myself, heck, how can we be so ill served?   

And, and yet I understand a lot of what's behind it and what behind it is, I believe spiritual, that there is a, there is a loss of a foundation, a loss of roots, if you will, in terms of understanding leadership. So what we've tried to do so far is to say, well, so let's go back and look at what are the crucial questions leaders ask.   

What are the things leaders have to face? And so my point, along the way has been to say, let's look at definitions, because that's a, the logical start point. So when you look at a definition of leadership, as I have known, you realize, well, that's a formidable subject in itself. How, how does one define leadership? Well, as we've noted, there are some 1500 working definitions at present, but we came to isolate it around one key word, and that word is service, servant serve, because that's what Jesus underscored definitionally.   

So we looked at that under and underscored that. That's, that too is a huge missing piece today when it comes to, leadership, we then move to talk about, again, necessity. Do we really need leaders? And there's a lot of debate, but somehow we have to, in our own minds, as we construct a theology of of leadership, we have to come to grips with the necessity of leadership and realize it's, it's critical.   

It's what people are looking for, it's what people are hungering for. But put that contextually with God to underscore that, not that God needs me, but certainly we have, we have followers that, that need us.   

So from there, we talked about how one becomes a leader and their, again, our number of ways, but again, came back to one core word that theology helps us to see with greater clarity, that it gets back to a summons, that at the end of it all, every leader is summoned by God, whether he or she realizes it or not. What theology does is helps us to become aware of the fact that we have been summoned and summoned for a purpose.   

These last couple of sessions, we focused in on credibility to say that what people need are desperate for. I know I feel I'm desperate for is a leader who has credibility. But again, what does that mean? And here's where I go back to theology to try to get some sense of what a credible leader looks like. And we have noted there are really three pieces of that.   

We need a leader with good character, and we need a leader, with wisdom. A story I tell in my book is a, is a story about George DeLong. George DeLong was the captain of the USS Jeanette, a ship that sailed in the eighties. That is the 1880s. And it was a time when people were caught up with this fervor, to explore, the North Pole.   

And, and so there were numerous ships and, and, invitations given to crews to go and explore. And the reason for it is there was this, there was this imaginative dream, if you will. There was this, there was this belief that if you could get past the outer crust, you would move into where the North Pole had this warm current coming up from the Pacific.   

And what you'd discover if you could make it to the North Pole, was a shangrila, if you will, of vast minerals and gold and creatures, a Mediterranean environment, a sense that you're in the Caribbean, and it was there with all of its richest and all of its comforts for people to enjoy.   

And so people like George DeLong, they signed people up and they went. But as we know, looking at the story of the USS Jeanette, it did get caught in the ice flows like so many other ships, and the crews perished. And we look back and we go, so what we see here is leadership that's not credible, because it was leadership that was based upon folly, upon, upon dreams that were unrealistic.   

And as we noted, a, a leader who's credible, not only has solid moral character, a leader who has credibility is a leader who sees reality, who gets in steps with the rhythms of God, who knows how life works and is, is not caught up in looking for dreams that have really bad outcomes. So wisdom character.   

What I want to shift now to, to do is to talk about a third aspect. So again, we're talking about credibility, Credibility, that, that we all want, we all need in a leader. And when we think of credibility, we're thinking again about character. And we're talking here, in terms of a word that's rather neutral, to talk about character that is good character, that's moral.   

And we find, again, where theology helps us is to give us reference points for what that means. And we need a leader with wisdom. A leader who is prudent or shrewd or savvy, whatever word you want to use here, a leader with segacity that sees life as it is and knows how to steer the ship.   

And then we now want to move to talk about competence And how critical that is. The point I want to make here is that you can have great character as a leader, you can even be shrewd. But if you don't have the skillset to be a leader, then it sort of negates these just as you can have the skill sets to be a leader.   

But if you don't have the character behind it or the wisdom, this breaks down. So these three, all work in a way that together then creates, a leader with credibility. So let's talk about competence, because when we talk about competence, the question is, so what does that mean exactly? What are the skillsets?   

I, when I was thinking about this subject, I asked myself the question, what is incompetence? That's almost easier to answer? And I went back to, to some of my personal history people I have been under who are incompetent leaders. Here's my list. I came up with some of my brush lists, my brushes with useless leaders include a supervisor who had no clue what the job was, a coach whose only competence it seemed was collecting a paycheck.   

A professor, I particularly remember when I was going to San Diego State, who halfway through the course finally figured out what he wanted to teach. He spent the first half of the course saying to the students, I've been teaching this a long time. Let's just kind of together think about what we want to do. It was a, it was a classic picture of incompetence as I remember.   

I also have a manager whose only, feedback, was to, to expand upon my own self-analysis without adding anything else to what I needed to hear. And a boss who was a leader, in name only some of, when we think about incompetent leadership, some call this absentee leadership. because there is no leader refers to the most common form of incompetent leadership.   

So incompetence. Let's  shift then and talk about what competence looks like. At some point, almost every leadership book I have worked, worked through talks about skill sets. What are the necessary skills a leader, has to have. And so let me give you again, what I've tried to do in a lot of this is to summarize, distill, bring together what lots of different people thinking about leadership would say are the, the essential skills.   

You may have your list as well, and some of what's on your list may not be on mine. But as I've looked at these, here are the seven that stand out. So the first of all, we'll, I'll list these here, starting with this, A leader who is competent is a leader who knows how to steward time.   

When I think about competent leaders, I think about leaders who, they have a sense of what time it is. They know what needs to be done. They, they have a sense of how time moves.   

They maybe with some other, another way to think about this, they have a, a a sense of urgency. Every competent leader realizes that time moves. And they, they are really skillful that not getting bogged down by nostalgia, not living in the past, they are, are not bound, by memories, if you will.   

But they, are seizing the moment they realize that one of our worst sins, if you will, is to squander the time we have. They not only ask who am I as one put it, they ask, when am. I, they have this awareness, this, mindful regard of history. There, is a, I should say there was a head coach of the San Francisco 49 ERs.   

I think his name was Steve Mariuchi, who never wore a watch. And one day, the journalists, who were around him asking different questions about what he was going to be, how he was, was preparing the team for the upcoming game. And I'll notice that there was, that he wasn't wearing a watch. And so they asked the question, coach, you never wear a watch.   

And, and his classic answer was, because the time is now, he, he didn't really need a watch because he sensed a certain urgency. John Kotter, who writes a lot about leadership underscores that a core skill, of a leader is, is one who understands the importance of urgency. They know, they know how to inhabit time. That's a great skill.   

Here’s a second one that's pretty obvious. A leader has to have the skill to manage. Now, this may seem obvious to us, but yet I find, a number of leaders like to see themselves as well. I prefer to fly at 37,000 feet. I'm this visionary. I I'm up here.   

I'm not down in the weeds when I hear that. I find myself thinking, especially after 35 years as a pastor. Well, that would be nice, but, you have to get into the weeds. You, you have to understand fiduciary issues. You have to deal with problems, as they, as they appear. We tend to distinguish managers from leaders. And, and there are some distinctions for sure in the church realm.   

We often think of senior pastor, executive pastor, senior pastor is more the one who has the larger overall vision and direction of, of the church. And the executive is carrying out the particularities, of what needs to happen with leadership. But when you think about competence as a leader, there has to be a fair measure of competence when it comes to managing things, managing people, managing resources, managing talents, all things that then will carry out the vision.   

So I tried to tell leaders who prefer to stay at the 37,000 foot level if you're going to, yeah, I think this is a way to put it. If you're going to earn the respect, of your board, they need to know that you understand some of the details they grapple with.   

If you come and sit in a, as I remember, one pastor Ashley I worked with who would actually do something like this, he would come into a board meeting. He’d have a book that he's reading, currently. And he'd sit down at the meeting and he began to read, and he basically said to the board, guys, I'm here if you need me.   

And he would just as if he was not necessarily, interested in or needed to be interested in the details of running the church. And, and I watched this because I once was on staff and I, I could see a growing distance between the board and him. A growing sense that, that actually, he's not contributing a lot to the leadership because he's unwilling to get down into some of the essential management, issues that leaders face.   

So, stewarding time, an essential skill is management. It doesn't mean that, you necessarily are a detailed person. In fact, most leaders I've met, aren't detail people. It’s not one of their strengths.   

But what I'm simply arguing for here is that it may not be your strength, but, but you have to be disciplined enough to, to sit down, to understand spreadsheets. You, if, if you're going to have credibility to say, you know, this is where we need to go. They need to, people need to see that behind that you understand, the, the, the financial health, for example.   

Or if you believe that you want to take the church this direction, they have to know that you understand the skill sets, and you're managing the staff carefully, and therefore you have, you have the strength behind you to do what you're going to do. A third skill set is flexibility. I may not think of it necessarily as a skill, but, but a leader who's competent is a leader who is able to flex.   

And leaders have to flex because things are always shifting and changing. Another word here is adaptability. A leader who is skillful is a leader who knows how to shift, how to adapt, who, might be thinking that moving ahead, it's going to be the planes, but instead, unexpectedly one faces the mountains.   

So what are you going to do? Leaders have to, in a sense, know how to shift, how to, to adapt to, where things are going. I have a really close friend who at one time, almost became the CEO of Shell Oil. And when we worked in Europe together, he actually, helped lead worship in my church.   

That was his Sunday job, so to speak. But Monday through Friday, he was in the upper etch echelons of Shell oil. He told me about their practice of doing what he called, or they called scenario thinking. In scenario thinking, you are are always seeking to, imagine scenarios. So if the economy goes this way, if oil production, steers this way, or if there's a, there's a conflict in the Middle East that suddenly stops the flow of oil, what will we do?   

So they established all of these scenarios. So if there was this shift, they were ready. And I've always thought to myself, you know, churches should do something like that. They, they should have scenario thinking, they should be prepared to adapt to, to flex, if you will.   

And, and that's a good competent leader who can, can do that. Because there again, there will be, there will be the unexpected. There will be, people who don't go the direction we anticipated. They might go. We may have leaders who, who maybe tomorrow won't be there.   

When I pastored a church in the Netherlands, I, worked with an expat culture, which was a great, great experience. But in our expat culture, things are shifting all of the time. It’s about a 40% turnover per year. And so I would have moments like this one here. I had an elder chair that I really loved.   

He was like the elder chair I've been waiting for. He was, competent, dynamic. He was a great friend. And one night, I remember he called me, he said, John, I have to let you know I've been reposted. I have been called back to the states. And I was, oh, I was so disappointed. But he said, no, Ashley, it's worse than that. I, I leave tomorrow. That was life, leading an expat church.   

And what I learned is that I had to adapt. I had to, I had to flex. I I was actually an emotional basket case my first, six months, in this church. I was an emotional basket case because, because I was losing people almost every week, good people. I was, leading a church that was filled with leaders, that had overseas assignments.   

Some of the most incredible scientists, CEOs, political leaders I've ever met in my life were all combined in this church. And it was great. And if you've ever been in a church overseas, in an expat situation, what you discover is people take all of their energies, into their next assignment. It's how they survive. So my point I'm making here is that they, they take that relational energy, and because they're not at home, you become home.   

You become their family. And, and so what happens within two or three weeks is you get intensely close. Some of my closest, closest relationships were ones that were formed not in years, but in, in weeks. And what would happen is they'd get reposted, they'd get transferred, and then they'd be, they'd be suddenly gone.   

And I remember at times, I could hardly, I could hardly hold myself, when I preached as another family was leaving, but I adapted, I flexed. And not that I figured this out on my own, but sitting down with people, they said, you know what we need to do? We need to see that we're not losing these people.   

We're actually sending them out on mission, whether it's Bangkok or Cairo or back to New York or wherever. So instead of lamenting and having a goodbye farewell at the end of the service, we started a commissioning, if you will. And so almost every week we were commissioning a family in their next assignment, and we put this big map on the wall, you see?   

And so we had all of these pens pointing to the people that our church was sending all over at the expense of the corporations. It was great. What is that? That's adapting, that's flexing, that's making something that could be really bad, something that actually turned out to be really good. And my experience has been leaders who are really competent, they, they flex.   

They know how to adapt to change. There is a also, this, there has to be the skill of preparation. Now, here's what I mean. When you think about skill sets, the, the leaders who actually often have the greatest authority in the room are those who are the most prepared.   

They have thought through the agenda. They are on top of things. I'll talk more about him later. But James Baker, who was once the secretary of State, who served, a number of presidents rose to great, great, influence and power. And it's because, people recognized and he, he learned this from his father. His father in a sense said, you need to always be the most prepared person in the room.   

And so this became his skill, if you will. So imagine how this worked out. It makes perfect sense, really, because when in the boardroom, people were working through issues, almost invariably they'd go, so, James, how do you see it? And they would do that because he was the most prepared person.   

So having studied, having thought through the agenda, he would give his wisdom and counsel. And with that came increasingly leadership. So a skillset of a leader is, here's a competent leader. A competent leader is one who's, who's prepared more than anyone else, who steps in a committee or a board or whatever, and doesn't just peruse through the agenda five minutes before the meeting, but says, what is it I need to know?   

They're the ones who are most prepared. And, and therefore, they know how to face resistance, at the board, when they will face sometimes resistance. They've studied the best course, they've studied the options, they've looked at the decisions that must be made. And people have, people have great confidence because of preparation.   

One, mu must also have the, of skill of engaging, let's call it this way, engaging people, pull in meaning I think of it in a sense as a skill.   

A leader must be able to be the one who every now and then brings people together to remind them that this is our purpose. To say in effect, you know, we're about something that's utterly amazing, that brings together shared values that brings together, dreams. Michael Ssim, in his book on leadership calls it honoring the Room.   

I, I like that statement. It's, I think of it in a church setting of something like this. A leader who every now and then says, to his board and to his people, you know, the hope of the world. The hope of the world is the church. And the hope of the church is its leaders. It’s providing meaning.   

When I taught in seminary, I would sometimes think if I was a development officer, not that I'd ever want to be a development officer, God bless them, but that wouldn't be for me. But in one sense, I found myself thinking it wouldn't be a hard sell with something like a theological institution or in effect in, something, like this ministry that I'm involved, in here in biblical training.   

Because, because engaging in people and meaning is to say, this is really important. What we're doing. Do you understand this? There's nothing more important than shaping theologically minded, biblically minded leaders. Why? Because they lead ministries, and ministries and churches are the hope of the world.   

Now, you tell me, is there anything more important than that? See, that's what a, a leader does. He brings people sometimes when they get so thick in the weeds to step back and go, we're doing something really significant. Do you realize this? This is to me, a competent leader. So these are some of the competencies. When I think about leadership skills, what we're going to do in our next session is now turn back to theology and see what theology has to say to this question.   

So when you're talking about adaptability and thinking about different scenarios, how do you frame that in a way that brings confidence to the process rather than being fearful of all the possible bad things that might happen along the way? Well, I think one is in scenario thinking, is to not think of what are the potential disasters a alone, but what could be some potential windfalls, what could be some really great things?   

And it, it would seem wise as a leader who is preparing, an institution for, for either way it goes, so if this happens, which could be really good, what must we be prepared to do? I may, in the lecture itself, a focus more on the negative side, but, but there can be also be the positive.   

So, so I think part of it is framing it both ways. I think the other which can reduce fear is to say, if we're really prepared, then we don't have to fear. I mean, where fear particularly, I think emerges as if we find ourself flatfooted and unprepared. And, I think back, it was 1973 and the oil crisis, and I, I remember that.   

Well, I was in seminary. I remember driving from, from San Diego back to Portland. And when I crossed the Oregon border, there wasn't one gas station open, all the way to Portland. It was a, crazy, crazy time. And, in fact, I finally got as far as Salem, and I knew someone who knew someone, who knew someone, who knew a farmer who had some gas that got me back to Portland.   

Now, I, in many ways, our nation wasn't ready for that. And suddenly, you know, we were without oil, without gas. But as I recall back, because I talked to my friend about this shell, oil was the only, was the only, if, if this is correct, was the only oil company that had anticipated it and, and had in certain ways prepared for it.   

So to reduce fear, right? So yeah, we've been, we've been anticipating this may happen. I think a good leader then is, is going to reduce fear by giving that kind of leadership.