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Archives for September 2011

How to Know if You are an Authoritarian Leader

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I blogged yesterday on how authoritarian leadership is actually a form of oppression.

How do you know if you are an authoritarian leader?

Aside from understanding basic leadership (see, for example, The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make — especially the first chapter, which is on authoritarian leadership), here’s one test:

Can you tolerate open inquiry? Do you let people ask questions? And do you let them do this not just one-on-one, but in public and in front of the whole staff?

Are you able to defend your views? Do you simply tell people what to do and expect them to do it because you said, or do you seek to show why it is a good idea?

Good leaders love open inquiry and can make a case for their views and the direction they are taking things.

This is probably one reason why, in the church, all elders — not just the main preaching pastor — must be “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2). Without the ability to teach and show why you believe something and are doing something, there is little recourse other than to the unbiblical practice of domineering over those in your charge (1 Peter 5:3).

Ten Things Only Bad Managers Say

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Excellent. Here they are:

  1. If you don’t want this job, I’ll find someone who does
  2. I don’t pay you to think
  3. I won’t have you on Facebook while you’re on the clock
  4. I’ll take it under advisement
  5. Who gave you permission to do that?
  6. Drop everything and do this now!
  7. Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions
  8. Sounds like a personal problem to me
  9. I have some feedback for you…and everyone else here feels the same way
  10. In these times, you’re lucky to have a job at all

Here’s one of the best parts, in response to number 3 (“I won’t have you on Facebook while you’re on the clock”):

Decent managers have figured out that there is no clock, not for white-collar knowledge workers, anyway. Knowledge workers live, sleep, and eat their jobs. Their e-mail inboxes fill up just as fast after 5:00 p.m. as they do before. Their work is never done, and it’s never going to be done. That’s O.K. Employees get together in the office during the daytime hours to do a lot of the work together, and then they go home and try to live their lives in the small spaces of time remaining. If they need a mental break during the day, they can go on PeopleofWalmart.com or Failblog.org without fear of managerial reprisal. We are not robots. We need to stop and shake off the corporate cobwebs every now and then. If a person is sitting in the corner staring up at the ceiling, you could be watching him daydream—or watching him come up with your next million-dollar product idea. (Or doing both things at once.)

Read the whole thing.

The Book of Leviticus on Leadership

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Leviticus 19:13 is interesting: “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him.”

What does this have to do with leadership?

It’s simple. Command and control leadership is an oppressive way to lead. Authoritarian leadership is a form of oppression. And this verse says “you shall not oppress your neighbor.” While the implications of this verse go far beyond leadership, they do pertain to leadership. If you lead in a way that oppresses your people, you are not leading in accord with this verse.

Am I being too extreme to call authoritarian leadership a form of oppression?

Obviously some forms of oppression are worse than others. I’m not classifying authoritarian leadership with slavery or other such things, which are clearly far more severe.

But as Christians we are to reject all forms of oppression. And authoritarian leadership is a subtle form of oppression because it does not seek the good of those being led. It views the leader as the one knowing all the answers, and the followers as existing to primarily carry out the will and desires of the leader. Instead of seeing his people as having initiative and ability to unleash, he sees them simply as tools. That is a failure to build people and serve them and, yes, it is a form of oppression.

I am not saying that clear, decisive leadership is a form of oppression. I’m not even saying that it is wrong for a leader to get in the details on things and seek to uphold high standards in how things are done.

Rather, we are primarily getting at a heart issue here. Is your aim in leading to serve and build others up in the accomplishment of the mission? Or do you see others merely as a tool to accomplish your aims?

There’s a big difference. That difference plays itself out in varying leadership styles, but at root and most important is your motive. Why are you even leading at all?

Complacency: The Opposite of Leadership

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From Alex and Brett Harris’ Do Hard Things, quoting the daily periodical Bits & Pieces:

Complacency is a blight that saps energy, dulls attitudes, and causes a drain on the brain. The first symptom is satisfaction with things as they are. The second is rejection of things as they might be: “Good enough” becomes today’s watchword and tomorrow’s standard.

Complacency makes people fear the unknown, mistrust the untried, and abhor the new. Like water, complacent people follow the easiest course — downhill. They draw false strength from looking back.

You’ll notice something interesting: Everything about complacency is the opposite of leadership.

Leadership inspires energy; complacency saps it.

Leadership enlivens attitudes; complacency dulls them.

Leadership energizes you to think hard; complacency is a brain drain.

Leadership is not satisfied with the problems and wrongs of the current situation; complacency says “OK.”

Leadership rallies people to a better future; complacency says “things can’t change; let’s stay here.”

Leadership challenges you with high expectations; complacency is content with “good enough.”

Leadership provides clarity and hope; complacency fears the unknown.

Leadership takes risks and is willing even to make excellent mistakes; complacency fears the untried and is not only unwilling to risk, but scoffs at it.

Leadership motivates people to endure challenges and difficulty to get to where they are going; complacency refuses to challenge the status quo or do hard things.

Leadership is energized by looking to the future; complacency seeks to take a nap in the present, even when it is full of need and opportunity.

But, like leadership, complacency is diligent. It is diligent in its commitment to prevent change and do nothing. At the heart of complacency is a militant commitment to mediocrity that scoffs at the notion that things can be better. And that is the worst thing of all.

Piper Up Now

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Piper is starting his message now, “Let the Peoples Praise You, O God Let All the Peoples Praise You!” He is preaching from Psalm 67 and Genesis 12.

David Platt Up Now

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Piper introduced David Platt with two things he loves about him most: his love for the Scriptures and passion for God’s glory among the nations.

Platt remarked how the passages he planned on speaking on are the same ones Louie Giglio went to last night — so maybe the Lord wants us to go deep into these passages.

Reading from Isaiah 6 now.

“There is no one like our God. It is folly to compare anything to our God. All of the earth is a continual explosion of the glory of God. ‘He brings the stars out one by one and calls them each one by one.’ And he is sovereign over all nations. Go to Isaiah 46. This is part of the purpose of Isaiah — to show the sovereignty and supremacy of God over the nations.”

This is a key point he is making: God’s sovereignty over nature is meant to buttress our confidence that God is sovereign over human history as well. We shouldn’t think “God is sovereign over rocks and trees and stars, but human history is out of his control.” He is sovereign over human history just as much as he is sovereign over the course of the stars and workings of nature.

The Difference Between the Natural Leader and Spiritual Leader

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From J. Oswald Sanders’ Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer. I can’t get it to work as a table, as it is in the book, but you should be able to see the comparisons well enough:

Natural

Self-confident

Knows men

Makes own decisions

Ambitious

Creates methods

Enjoys command

Seeks personal reward

Independent

Spiritual

Confident in God

Knows men and knows God

Seeks God’s will

Humble [and ambitious for God’s aims]

Follows God’s example

Delights in obedience to God

Loves God and others

Depends on God