Unit II. Context: The Congregation/Leadership Situation
Unit Introduction
In “charting your course” for congregational leadership, servant leadership is the content, and the actual congregational situation is the context. This unit seeks to take a look at selected aspects of that context as the bases for choosing leadership behavior and styles to serve most effectively.
Assessing the congregational situation seeks to ask and answer several basic questions.
- “What is situational/contingency leadership?
- “What are the congregation’s vision/ministries/tasks to be pursued?”
- “Who are the followers/members/coworkers doing the work?”
- “What do leaders, staff and lay, bring to the context?”
- “What organizational and family systems frame the work?”
- “What specific relationships and events impact the congregation context?”
The congregation and its servant leaders have choices to make about leadership styles. In a sense, there are two basic approaches in responding to leadership situations:
— First: The static approach– “I have only one way to get things done, and I try to use it to lead as well as I can in every situation.”
— Second: The contingency approach– “I have a natural, preferred style of leadership, but based on changing contexts or situations, I lead in different styles to be most effective.”
The “contingency approach” seems to describe best the great variety of leadership styles we find in Holy Scripture and in today’s practice of servant leadership Let’s start with an overview of “situational leadership.”
1. Situational Leadership Approaches Hersey and Blanchard, among others, have asserted that there is no one-best leadership style. Rather, they have proposed that leadership styles should be matched to the situation at hand. This is also described as behavioral or contingency leadership. (See Study Abstract at the close of this unit.)
- Four leadership situation components have a direct bearing on the performance and the outcomes. Servant leaders should review and apply these factors as they select ministry leadership approaches.
- First: The Minister/Leader: “Who is the minister/leader?” His/her competencies, background, goals, values, characteristics and traits may emerge, but task and people concerns are uppermost–level of respect for people. “We are laborers laborers together.”
- Second: The Followers/Workers: “What are the members like?” Their maturity, ability and willingness to take responsibility for directing their own behavior, for performing their task; their level of trust in the leader and in one another.
- Third: The Task/Ministry: “What is the Christian ministry to be done?” Characteristics of the task: Is the task clear by its very nature or because of planning; have instructions been made clear to the worker; is the kingdom mission of the church served?
- Fourth: The Congregational Systems: “What are the internal and external systems and environment for pursuing the ministry/tasks?” The above three factors take place within the living, changing systems of a congregation-that is the context of servant leadership.
- Choosing a Leadership Style The “path-goal theory,” one expression of situational leadership, holds that given a particular leadership situation, any one of four leadership styles could be engaged:
- Directive leadership–lets coworkers know what is expected of them and how the task should be accomplished.
- Supportive leadership–shows concern for the needs of followers, makes the work more pleasant, and is friendly and approachable.
- Participative leadership–consults with members and takes their suggestions into consideration when making decisions.
- Achievement-oriented leadership–emphasizes excellence in performance and displays confidence that workers will assume responsibility and accomplish challenging goals.
Situational leadership builds on biblical principles and examples. The Apostle Paul admonished against being pushed about in the howling storms of worldly doctrine (see Eph. 4:14), but he also confessed that he chose to respond to the context and culture so that he could win over the unbelievers (see 1 Cor. 9:10). He was gentle as a mother, stern as a taskmaster, principled in behavior, and flexible in leadership methodology. He was always “pressing toward the mark” (Phil. 3:14).
Reflection/Application
Although just a summary, how do you respond to this approach? How is it reflected in biblical characters? What would your coworkers say about you?
2. Congregational Functions/Tasks
Servant leadership is for every member, leader, and follower, in every role inside and outside church life. Each can choose to participate as a servant to do well a specific task, to add strength to the team, to provide example and encouragement to others–and thus to enter the servant leadership force (Eph. 3:21; Col. 3:23).
- When a church intentionally decides to do its work as a servant congregation, it provides a dynamic relation for its leaders and followers; servant leadership becomes part of every system.
- On the other hand, a congregation becomes a servant body in the cause of Christ as disciples/ministers invest themselves in its life and functions.
- Every task, function, and role in church life provides an opportunity for each member to be servant-as-leader. The task/function graphic below seeks to visualize the biblical and practical ministries of most congregations.
Congregational Function Diagram
- There are four critical sets of functions. Three of them focus on the congregation, and the fourth on congregational leadership goals, skills, development, and spiritual formation.
- Although stated in four sets, each is tied together by a congregational commitment to servant leadership and by the reality of one congregational system, many subsystems.
- Like the church as the body of Christ, every part is mutually essential and responsible. If one part does not function well, it affects the whole. This is a strong picture of “every member a servant leader” or on a servant leadership team.
- Finding your place as a servant leader has to do with your role or position power–but even more-so, with your spiritual giftedness, task/skill readiness, and maturity of willingness and confidence.
Reflection/Application to your ministry and leadership:
In which do you serve consistently? Where could you enlarge your servant leadership? Use the diagram as an assessment tool.
3. Focusing on Congregational Systems Thinking (See the Study Abstract at the close of this unit.)
- Servant leadership takes the discipline of “systems thinking” into the context of choosing leadership styles to match situations.
- What is “systems thinking”? Peter Senge in his profound book, “The Fifth Discipline,” p. 7, defines it for us:
Systems thinking is “a conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and tools, to make the full patterns clearer, and help us see the invisible fabrics of the whole. We go beyond focusing on snapshots of the parts, and see how to change the whole.”
- “Systems thinking” provides a discipline–concepts and tools for servant leaders to see the “big picture,” the larger context. Within the congregation’s servant leadership team, some must focus on “systems thinking.” This is true for the organization as a whole, and for its programs, ministries, and departments.
- Systems thinking means that servant leaders have the capacity to see patterns in the congregational whole instead of just identifying its parts. We can learn how to change the system, if needed, and to reinforce its present desired behavior.
- Traditionally, we expect to look at the subsystems and ministries independently and make them work more effectively; thereby, we expect that the whole will be successful. This has worked well for us, but new insights are needed and available.
- Systems thinking focuses on the relationship among the parts that form the whole. What counts is looking for patterns, for rhythms, for directions, shape, and networks doing the work of the congregation.
Reflection/Application
How would you describe specific systems in the “big picture” of your congregation?
- 4. Family Systems, Subsystems, and Leadership (Adapted from Ronald Richardson, “Family Systems Theory.”)
- Servant leaders should include the “family systems approach” in their examination of the ministry leadership context. This section adds to the tools provided in “systems thinking.” Let’s review family systems’ basic concepts for leadership.
- As a human organization, the Christian congregation is a spiritual/social/economic system with a network of interactive subsystems. The church is the interworking pattern of the whole, not just the sum total of its parts.
- A major change in one of its subsystems has an effect on the behavior of other subsystems and has an impact on the congregational system as a whole.
- The graphic below illustrates representative subsystems at work within a congregation’s systems. Think in terms of interaction, impact, and leadership challenges this presents.
- Family systems leadership requires critical relationship skills, such as:
- to become more fully your best self; manage yourself, not others; to be less judgmental.
- to maintain both connected and aloneness.
- to care for the congregational systems as a whole.
- to nurture members throughout the congregational family.
- to observe what is happening within the congregational systems and its parts; to assess the impact.
- to watch for patterns and direction within the systems.
- to become a calm, less anxious presence within the systems.
- to separate what is “fact” and “feeling,” and so to reduce negative emotional responses.
- to act consistently on your beliefs and principles.
- to stay with dyadic relationship patterns.
Reflection/Application:
List at least three family systems leadership roles that would improve your “situational leadership.” Talk this over with coworkers.
5. Contextual Leadership Application
There are strong influences for you to apply the same leadership pattern to every situation and to see the congregation only one part at a time. However, could you apply the insights of this unit to the following leadership situations within your congregation? These are just examples; select, or state, your church’s situation. Make leadership notations:
- Your congregation has just approved its first mission/vision statement with 5-year strategies and goals.
- In a 3-month period you have pressed to move your church from traditional to celebration worship style.
- Your church’s opportunities for service far outstrip the commitment and preparedness of its members.
- Your “proclamation evangelism” is being challeneged by the need for “cup of cold water” ministry/witness initiatives.
- The music, youth, and missions education have a running gun battle over scheduling events.
- You have just arrived following the long tenure of a beloved pastor who has been given the pastorium.
- A military base closes–involving 30% of your members and 50% of your leadership and budget.
- An assisted-living facility has opened next to your church property; you have “0” Senior adult ministry.
- The high school next to church moved to a new facility eight miles across town.
- An interstate loop cuts through the boundaries of your natural church field.
- Homes around your church location are turning from homeowners to renters.
- The general economy and employment have been declining for the past eighteen to twenty-four months; it’s time to plan next year’s budget.
- There is a long-term controversy centering within your denomination and is filtering down into your church.
- Your church has decided to relocate to the middle of a new subdivision.
Reflection/Application:
Servant leaders pay attention to changing congregational systems/situations. How well do you do?
Study Abstract: Focusing On Systems Thinking
from The Fifth Discipline:
“The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization.”
by Peter M. Senge. Currency Doubleday, New York, 1994
–Prepared by Lloyd Elder
Abstracted from Senge’s book, the following selected concepts present the role of “systems thinking” in living, learning, growing organizations. Applications to servant leaders within a congregation may be drawn by each of us, and they are profound and numerous.
- Learning Organizations: People continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire; new patterns of thinking are nurtured, aspirations set free, and people are learning how to learn together (p. 3). Organizations excel that tap their people’s committment and capacity to learn (p. 4).
- Disciplines of the Learning Organization: Five disciplines in behavior of learning organizations form a body of theory and technique that are mastered and put into practice (p. 10).
- 1) Systems thinking is a conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and tools to see the organization as a whole, not just its parts and to help change them effectively (pp. 6-7).
- 2) Personal mastery is a special level of proficiency; an ability to consistently realize the results that matter most deeply to them: a commitment to lifelong learning. As a discipline, personal mastery is the learning organization’s spiritual foundation (p. 7).
- 3) Mental models are deeply engrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. It starts with turning the mirror inward unearthing our internal pictures of the world (p. 8).
- 4) Building shared vision is the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to create; with a genuine vision expressed in goals, values, and missions; people excel and learn because they want to (p. 9).
- 5) Team learning is truly learning, not only producing extraordinary results but individual team members growing more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise (pp. 9-10).
Systems thinking is the fifth discipline because it integrates the five disciplines into an ensemble, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice. The organization as a whole can exceed the sum of its parts, but systems thinking also needs the other four disciplines (p. 12).
- Laws of the Fifth Discipline
Senge draws several laws from “systems thinking” that serve as tools for those working within an organization [think about your own congregational systems]:- 1) Today’s problem can come from yesterday’s “solutions,” because they too often merely shift problems around (pp. 57-58).
- 2) The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back; often explained as “compensating feedback” (pp. 58-60).
- 3) Behavior grows better in the short run before it eventually grows worse; too often a solution only cures the symptoms (p. 60).
- 4) The easy way out only leads back in; we too often look for solutions in what we already know best and do not seek new initiatives responding to the impact of systems (pp. 60-61).
- 5) The cure can be worse than the disease; short-term improvements all too commonly lead to long-term dependence (p.61).
- 6) Faster is slower; when growth becomes excessive, it most often outpaces optimal natural systems (pp. 62-63).
- 7 ) Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space; “effect” means obvious symptoms, and “cause” means the interaction of underlying systems (p. 63).
- 8) Small changes can produce big results–but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious (p. 63).
- 9) You can have your cake and eat it too–but not at once. Taking time to develop new skills and processes may get what you really want–quality and quantity (pp. 65-66).
- 10) Living systems have integrity, their character depending on the whole. Organizations must be seen as a whole to understand the most critical issues (pp. 66-67).
- 11) There is no blame. Systems thinking shows us that there is no outside, that you and your problems are part of a single system (p. 67).
Reflection/Application:
Concept by concept consider how servant leadership, individuals, and teams could apply systems thinking to your congregation.
Study Abstract – Family Systems Approach
from Ronald W. Richardson’s, Creating a Healthier Church: Family Systems Theory,
Leadership, and Congregational Life, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1996
–prepared by Lloyd Elder
- Studies in the last quarter century have set forth the reality of a congregation in terms of “family systems.” Murray Bowen first published in this area in 1978, and Edwin Friedman continued its application in 1985. Since then numerous scholars have expanded the understanding, including Richardson’s 1996 book applying this to the role of leadership. This is becoming a basic element in the leader/follower situation of any Christian minister.
- The congregation, as an emotional system, networks with a variety of other systems and subsystems, such as: structural, communication, decision-making, economic, and cultural (p. 8). The systems model recognizes that members can only be understood fully within the context of their relationships. No one lives or acts in isolation; we are all affected by each other’s behavior: “we are all in this together” (p. 25).
- Anxiety, as the threat of abandonment or engulfment, is a powerful force in the balance of the congregation’s emotional systems (pp. 41, 49). Within a congregation there is a sense of community that members consider as “comfort zones,” or “right and proper” levels of emotional closeness and distance. There are also zones of abandonment and engulfment (pp. 66-67); but, wise leaders know when to invite connection, when to listen rather than speak, and when to be comfortable with distance (pp. 77-78).
- Congregational life has four functional styles as it expresses the two powerful forces of emotional relationships: togetherness (closeness) and individuality (distance) (pp. 101-112).
- Enmeshed: extreme fusion resulting in loss of self, of individuality; the individual experiences engulfment which causes a level of discomfort.
- Isolated: no fusion, establishing extreme distance from others, from togetherness; one experiences abandonment, of not belonging.
- Connected: a healthy differentiation of allowing a sense of togetherness without loss of self; a healthy sense of belonging.
- Alone: connects with others but maintains the ability to stand alone; a healthy sense of identity.
- Glossary–differentiation; Richardson says: “It is equivalent to the biblical concept of wisdom; it has to do with people’s ability to effectively use what they know” (p. 85). [Others define: perceiving a difference, marking a distinction, marking the boundaries.]
- Dyadic Relationship and Triangulation
- Dyadic relationships in a congregation are between two people who have established or at least are managing their comfort zones of closeness and distance (p. 32):
A—————B - Triangulation takes place when either A or B brings a third party C into this emotional system seeking help to change the other person, or to take over the responsibility (p. 114). Leadership in the family system limits its role in being a third party.
- Remember that triangles are normal but your role in the process is a choice.
- Since triangles are basically about people’s level of anxiety, discover how you could contribute to a calmer, less anxious, and safer environment for people (p. 129).
- Dyadic relationships in a congregation are between two people who have established or at least are managing their comfort zones of closeness and distance (p. 32):
- Becoming a better leader in the congregational system:
- You become a better leader by becoming more fully yourself, and by managing yourself (not others) within the context of your congregation (p. 172).
- The leader’s main job is to create an emotional atmosphere in which greater calmness exists, to be a less anxious presence (p. 173).
- To be aware of, and to reduce your own level of emotional negativity in the midst of difficult situations (pp. 178-179).
- To separate what is a “feeling” and what is a “fact,” and facilitate this process with others.
- To act on the basis of your principled beliefs in a way that is consistent with your goals (p. 180).
- To work in the functional styles of connected and alone.
Reflection/Application:
Reconsider your congregation as “family systems.”