Leadership Shift
I love the opportunities I get to visit my home church and talk with the people that were around me when I was growing up and sort of trying to figure out some kind of faith for myself. I eventually went ‘all in’ in college and found a strong calling for what I am doing. But I didn’t start off that way.
I was talking with the man who was my youth pastor growing up, and I appreciate his candor when he said that I didn’t look like I was going to be a pastor in high school. He added the thought that I wasn’t on his leadership radar. I took some of the leaders around me by storm when the news of my career would trickle home.
I believe leadership has shifted for our generation. I just happened to be under the care of people who were looking for the traditional modern leader and had no idea what leaders were going to look like in 15 years. Add to that the fact that I was a skateboarder and in the early nineties we were an outcast community.
I think the biggest thing that has become old hat is the ‘cult of personality’ leader. Baby boomers and those still living in the modern school of thought wanted the guy with the big personality and charisma to be the one running the show. My generation has grown up distrusting the authority, title and personality of this type of leader.
I have a passion for leaders. I have seen many of the young people I have worked with go on to be leaders of ministries. I would guess that very few of them would have been on the leadership radar had they been in high school 15 years ago
The coming of age of different leadership models is progress in human development. However, the challenge has been trying to create a “one-size-fits-all” leadership model. In the pantheon of leadership models, from traditional to charismatic, leadership styles are only as effective as its impact on a specific situation or social agenda. For example, during stable economic conditions, a more traditional form of leadership might be effective. During tumultuous or uncertain times, a more charismatic form of leadership might be more viable. Many people forget that prior to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. King’s style of leadership was being usurped by a more militant— Stokely Carmichael brand of leadership. Which model was more relevant? Or popular? It depended/depends on the situtaion and school of thought you came to embrace.
The presidential campaign of Barack Obama, which isn’t a new form of leadership under the charismatic model, is being embraced by the youth as well as various demographics. Leadership, like any other program, has to be switched out and changed according to its effect on a specific result. Many pundits rarely take the long view of leadership as a situational phenomenon choosing an all or nothing reality.
Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute
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