Styles of Leadership
Canon Robert Warren
TAKEN WITH PERMISSION FROM A TIME FOR SHARING: COLLABORATRIVE MINISTRY IN
MISSION. 1995. PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD OF MISSION OF THE GENERAL SYNOD OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
If new structures for the mission of the church are to emerge there will need to be a
matching change in the church’s understanding and practice of leadership within the
ordained ministry. I believe that leadership for collaborative ministry in mission is
likely to be along the following lines:
Being a conductor rather than director
Leadership for collaborative ministry in mission will involve identifying the gifts of
those within the local church, and seeking to harmonise their individual (and
sometimes idiosyncratic) contributions. The conductor is the one person in an
orchestra who does not play an instrument. Too easily the local church has been built
around the gifts of the incumbent. What will be needed will be the building of the
churches around the rich mosaic of gifts, insights and convictions of the whole of the
laity. For this to happen, the ordained minister will need to affirm, train and support
such gifts as well as, where necessary, confront the hidden power agenda that may be
shaping what is going on.
Becoming a facilitator rather than a provider
I believe leadership will need to avoid the disempowering style of the provider/client
relationship. As such it will need to enable people to “do it themselves”. In this way
the Church can be prophetic by the very way in which it operates. In so doing the
Church can model for society a better way of doing things than the too frequent way
of the professional classes taking power and decision-making away from people. Such
a change of style may well uncover insecurity in the ordained clergy which will need
to be owned and dealt with.
Permission-giver rather than permission withholder
I believe leadership will need to discover ways of both affirming lay involvement and
encouraging lay initiatives in the whole of life. Collaborative ministry in mission
involves going beyond allowing the laity to do what the priest has traditionally done.
It is about allowing the laity to shape and to be the initiators, of both their ministry
and that of the clergy.
Steering rather than rowing
I believe leadership will need learn, and practise, a style of operating which moves
beyond “doing everything” into “causing everything to be done”. Delegation is a
crucial part of this style, but again it will be more than giving the laity the jobs the
vicar wants them to do. It will include discovering the vision and convictions of the
laity with a view to helping facilitate that direction.
Being a person rather than a parson
I believe that the primary sense in which a priest is an icon, or representative, of
Christ, is in being reflections of his humanity: the incarnate Jesus. In this sense, being
human is what Christianity is all about. The leaders need therefore to own and
articulate their own sense of meaning, discovery of wholeness, and escape from
addictions. Personal openness to change will be essential for such a living out of the
Gospel.