Christian Leaders: Stop Managing – Start Leading

In the Harvard Business School book “Competing for the Future” Gary Hamel & CK Pralahad assert that mature organizations tend to have managers rather than leaders at the helm, to the detriment of the organization. Why is that bad? Aren’t managers a good thing? And while we’re at it, how does any of this apply to the disciple dilemma?

Peter Drucker, the business strategy sage offers potent insight about leadership: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Any number of authors, including Stephen Covey in “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” say managers exist to climb ladders (pursue the aims of an institution) ever faster, more efficiently, and to get “there”, regardless of where that ladder leads. So while managers are about climbing ladders – leadership is about wondering if the ladder is even leaning against the right wall!

Of course, we have to manage. But that’s the process, not the objective, not the product. And if the process is not producing the product we intended to aim toward, leadership has to step in. What walls are your discipleship ladders leaning against right now? Where do your ladders—your mission—lead? Are your Christian community ladders leaning against the right walls? This is the fundamental question that leaders exist for. In The Disciple Dilemma we aim to make the case that leadership can get distracted into managerial things, working on climb efficiency, instead of the very reason they exist as leaders: are we scaling the right wall. The result of getting caught in the managerial? Distancing from the objective. Loss of mission. Spiritual decline of your people. Scaling the wrong walls means people are not getting where they’re supposed to be. Time and effort are lost, diverted from the true mission. Motivation will languish. People will give up, or simply be confused about what to do next, being up there on the wrong wall, not where they’re supposed to be, waiting for direction from the folks holding the ladders.

The Sovereign God expects leaders to be shrewd, strategic, and insightful on their watch. One such example of that duty is conveyed by Paul in the book of Acts: And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” Acts 19:1-3. The leaders of these people had reverted to managing. Managing climbs on ladders emphasizing fellowship and membership, both of them the wrong walls to scale as believers. Neither fellowship nor membership is a wrong thing in itself, but they are not what leaders must point us to as disciples – the “right climb” so to speak of understanding what Christ demands of us, of surrender to him and forever then following Christ.

Are you managing your disciples, or leading them? In keeping the lights on, the building clean, the sermons going, the ministries moving along, are you leading, or are you mostly managing?

What will you do for the people you’re responsible for on your watch? You call is now, you are on duty now – to lead. You owe your people, the disciples, the right walls to climb. Discipleship is the right wall. Yes, leaders need to support managers and stewards and volunteers and staff to climb better, climb safely, climb faster, higher. If the ladder is in the right spot. This leadership is your fundamental duty, corporate or Christian. To lead, not manage is your primary role. How’s it going?

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