Video Transcript: Your Leadership Style

Welcome back as we can continue to learn how to lead together. And notice the title for this  session, it's your leadership style, we've been looking at your personality, we've been looking  at your personal mission in life. And hopefully you've given some thought to that. And now I  want to look at some various ways that you can lead styles of leadership. And we're going to  look at a couple of different quantifications of styles. But as we begin this, I want you to be  aware that you don't use just one style if you're a good leader, that various situations require  different styles of leadership. And your style of leadership is highly dependent on the situation you are in the culture you are in. And we'll talk more about that when we get to culture. But  again, now it's just the diagram, not the not the definition today, but the leader interacting  with culture to develop a vision, and then giving the impetus to working that out to finding  God's mission in our life. So and then the words, but now leadership styles. These, this listing  comes from a book called The Making of a Christian Leader by a man named Ted Engstrom, as he looked at leaders around his world, he said, there are these four basic styles about how a  person can move people forward. The first one Laissez-Faire, you may recognize as a as a  statement of government Laissez-Faire is anything goes or the people are self directed. In  other words, the leader gives minimum direction and provides maximum freedom to the  people. And the people just kind of go where they're going to go, the leader kind of recedes  into the background. Now, there's a good question on that part of some is that really  leadership, and in some senses, it can be. For instance, one pastor here in the United States  felt called to be a writer and speaker and, and he was spending so much time in the  bureaucracy of the church, that he was having a difficult time doing that. And so you know,  there were these meetings, those meetings, and there was the pastoral care issues. And there were the decisions to make, because there was a building expansion thing going on, and  committees to be part of, and etc, etc, etc, and finally went to the elders of his church and  just said, you know, I don't feel like I'm fulfilling God's mission in my life, because I'm so busy  with these things. And so the elders of the church said, You know what, you're right. They  affirm his mission. And they said, Okay, we're setting you free. Now, you don't have to come  to a meeting, again, you preach, you will lead us through your preaching, you write and lead  us through your writing, and will take care of all the details of ministry. And so that's what  they did. Now that church didn't grow hugely. You may know the person I'm talking about his  name is Eugene Peterson, somebody who wrote the best known paraphrase of the Bible, and  has written many books, he was incredibly productive during that time, church was relatively  small to medium sized 300 people in attendance. In that sense, that was a Laissez-Faire  approach to leadership. Now, sometimes in, in the business world, this can become a very  effective way, if you've got really motivated people, this can become a very effective style of  leadership. Google, for instance, has a highly structured leadership of highly, highly  structured leadership structure. But they give people time because they know they've hired  all these great creative, motivated people. And so what they do is they build in 10% of their  time is to be spent thinking outside the box. And they can do that collaboratively, they can do it by themselves and do it however, it's, it's ever however, it fits their personality and their  gifting and etc. And so these people are just thinking up ideas. Now, Google has some pet  some big stuff on the long range planning things that they want to get done things that they  want to accomplish things that they want to change in their business model, but then give  these people that freedom and some big things have come out of that. Did you know that  that's how Gmail started, a couple of people got together started talking about the the email  servers that existed up to that point, and said, you know, this could be improved, if we could  just figure out a way to do this, this, this and this. And we'd have something that would really  be helpful out there and would go in the marketplace. And it was sort of came as a result of a  laissez faire kind of situation where they said, oh, let's go do it. Now, again, they had to bring  that to the leadership and get it approved, but it came out of these people who are well  motivated. Doing what they wanted to do now Laissez-Faire only works if you have people  who are incredibly motivated and really want to get something done. Democratic participative democratic process is exactly what it says it is people are engaged in making the decisions.  Now, in some respects, democracy is rather new on the face of world history. A old Greek the  Greeks had it way back when in their cities when they have the citizens who are able to vote, 

and they were able to come to these city wide meetings, and they would impact the public  policy. But when the United States began, and they began with a democracy, a representative democracy, it was rather new, because up until that point, decisions were made by the people who were the nobles, or the royalty, it was the king or queen saying, This is what we're going  to do. And at a lower level, it was the nobel who was defining what you could do and what you couldn't do. And that was the king and the nobles, who owned all the land and, and the rest of the people barely had opportunity to get any input into a decision. It was not theirs to do, it  was the part of the royalty. Now, the royalty was supposedly had noblesse oblige or the  obligation of the nobility. But many times they did not. When the United States got started,  they decided they didn't want a king, they wanted the people to be involved in making  decisions. And so how do we do that? Well, they created this system to the US Constitution.  Now there's an interesting side note to that. And that is there's really almost a theological  understanding that underpins a democracy. And that is that we don't believe that people are,  by nature inherently good. Because everybody who's in our government has checks and  balances, the president can't just do whatever he wants, there's a check and balance on him  through the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and neither one of  those bodies by themselves can make long lasting decisions, there's a check and balance  there, recognizing that people are not by nature, all good, they have a tendency toward bad,  and they can become selfish very quickly. And so you can see that in dictators and that sort of thing. So, so we created this system that has worked various times fairly well. So democratic  participative style of leadership, wherever you are organization or church, that's the setting, I  knew it from, asked the people to be involved. And then the leader helps them define what  they want, and helps them get the energy and the impetus to move forward toward those  things that they've decided. Now, the positive thing about this style of leadership is that the  people are engaged, they're committed, they are participating, because they want to be part  of this. And the negative is, people have to be engaged. People can't just be sitting on the  sidelines, and having the organization work well with these kinds of people. So you're going to be in a democratic, you're going to use a democratic style, you use it when people are really  motivated to be part of the solution, that they are responsible. They're they're taking on  responsibility, that they are able to be independent, and don't need always you there defining the future, and that they have the necessary knowledge and experience to make good  decisions. In those types of situations, this works very well. Now in other situations, it doesn't  work well, because people aren't equipped to be part of that process. You'll notice the next  one benevolent, autocratic, this is characterized by a father like concern on the part of the  leader, the leader is somebody who's in charge. And he identifies closely with a group,  certainly, he's part of the group, and he wants to keep them happy. But he has the power  basically, by operates benevolently. Now, this goes way back to Plato. Plato said that the ideal form of government would be the, the benevolent dictator, somebody who is kind and wants  the good of the people, but somebody who's given power. You see, in a, in a democratic  participative situation, things can just kind of grind back to mediocrity very quickly if nobody's giving direction to it, because everybody's got to have their say, and you've got to work  through consensus, some people believe, and then things will just grind to a halt. Whereas if  you've got a benevolent, autocratic form with people are accepting it. Think decisions can be  made quickly, directions can be set quickly. Some groups of people thrive on this kind of  leadership. Now, I didn't realize this in my first church. As I said, there was a group of people  who all have blue collar jobs, and they really wanted a leader who would tell them what to do, tell them where to go, and I was trying to create this democratic participant participate  participative, excuse me, process so that they would be engaged in the process. And they  would own the process. And they went to work every day and had people tell them what to  do. And they really needed that as well. And so we kind of missed each other. Now. Part of my  studies in church growth years ago, it's this style that was defined as the one that's able to  make the church grow the fastest. When we relocated in Southern California, we sold the  building that we had first made the first building that the church had ever owned, sold it to  another church, it was kind of an independent church. But they had a whole different  structure than than we did. You know, I was the lead pastor of that church, I, we had staff, but

we also have these highly educated, competent leaders who are volunteering in various  situations. So we're going to sell our building to this various group. And it was fascinating to  watch the difference, because I would come into meetings with the chairman of our building  planning team with the chairman of our finance team, but some members of the building  planning team was in somebody, I'd have six, seven people on my side of the table, and  Pastor Duke would come in, and it was him and his brother in law, who was the administrator  for the church. And so they, they have the authority to make decisions right then and there.  They didn't have to consult with the board, because Pastor Duke was it later on, my youngest  daughter wanted to get married in that church buildings, and she had so many good  memories of it. And so I went over there to say, what does it cost to rent this church building?  And, you know, they had a check with Pastor Duke first. He was, he was somebody who  controlled things well, but the church was growing, because he was gathering people who are  used to that kind of leadership and that style, and thrived on it. And so they were getting  great things done, because decisions could be made easier. Now, am I advocating for this?  Not necessarily, it depends on the culture where you are serving the people you are serving.  And just want this in your tool bag to realize there are times when to be a benevolent dictator  is not all that bad, and can be used as a style positively. Now, one step further is the  autocratic bureaucratic person, the autocratic person is somebody who says, I'm in charge no  matter what. There was a church years ago cartoon in some magazine. And I don't remember  the magazine, but I remember the cartoon, it was a pastor was asked what what's your org  chart for your church? And he drew a great big circle. He said, me, me and it, and they were  all little circles underneath that represented everybody else in the church. That's, that's the  autocrat. That's the person who says, This is me. I don't answer to anyone. There are no  boards in this kind of church. They don't leaders, the one who creates the rules, you'll see this and entrepreneurs, often this kind of personality and style, you'll see it in church planters  often because they have to be that way, in order to get something done, that this is the way  it's going to be. This is especially a useful style in an emergency kind of situation or crisis  situation, you'll find that when churches are falling apart, and there's inter warfare and when,  when a strong leader like a benevolent autocratic leader has left, it usually leaves a huge  vacuum, and then somebody's got to come in, to help meld together various parts of that  organization or that church. And that's when the autocratic bureaucratic style works well. So  that's one way of looking at this idea of style. Now, again, there's not one that's better than  another. But in reality, as a leader, you should be thinking about what style will work where I  am, what works best, what has worked for me, what is the culture of this place, and will first  get to define that in the future. Here's another way of looking at it from Daniel Goleman, a  more contemporary book Leadership That Gets Things Done. Now, here's another group of  styles and you can choose the one that fits you best or the one you can choose to fit you best. The pace setting leader is the person comes in basically says do as I do. In other words,  they're somebody who takes a group of people along isn't somebody who stands up and  preaches and said, you know, we should be sharing Jesus Christ with every house in this  community. He doesn't do that. What he does is he says, you know, Tuesday night I'm going  out calling who'd like to come with me, who'd like to learn how to do this do as I do, or you're  getting that first staff person and you're walking, you know, together in this wonderful mission of your organization. And you're saying does person Okay, here's what I do in this situation so  that they are are trained. The authoritative leader is the one who says Come with me, but it's  with me i under one, the affiliate affiliated leaders, the warning says people come first. And so even before a direction is set within an organization, they will be learning a relationship with  people and, and the effective leader in that process identifies the key people to have a  relationship with. And so you'll find affiliates of leaders in churches, especially toward the  beginning of a time, this is a great style to say, Who's the influential people in this church.  And, you know, make a point of getting to know them, find out what their heart is for the  church begin to learn. And as those people come first, you'll be able to get visions for the  future of what God is calling that church or that organization to become the coaching leader is working and establishing more leaders. And so they are somebody who says try this. The  coercive leader is do what I tell you to do. That's the authoritative guy who's says, you know, 

whether it's right or wrong, you do what I tell you. This is army's function, right? You've got to  rank and if you are ranked low, you don't question your orders. You do what I do the coercive  of leaders that and the Democratic leader is what do you think now? These are just a different 

way to put the ones that we talked about earlier. one more statement of how this can work.  Okay, the style is listed on across the top board, you know, coercive, authoritative affiliative  democratic paced setting and coaching. And then you look below how does the leader  operate well, in a coersive one, he demands immediate compliance and the authoritative he  mobilizes people toward a vision and the affiliative he creates harmony and builds emotional  bonds and the Democratic he forges consensus through participation and the pace setting  one he sets high standards for perform for performance. And then the coaching one he  develops people for the future, the style and a phrase as we saw do what I tell you come with  me people come first What do you think do as I do now, try this underlying emotional  intelligence competencies. Now. Emotional intelligence they found is more important even  than skill in the business world. How you interact with people is very important. So what what  drives these people, these types of leaders, these styles of leadership, what drives them, the  coercive is a drive to achieve and to self initiative and self control. The authority the  authoritative is self confidence, empathy, change, and to be a catalyst of change the  affiliative to have empathy, build relationships, communication is vitally important,  democratic his collaboration and team leadership and communication pacesetting is  conscientiousness drive to achieve initiative once again, and then the coaching his deep  desire to develop others and self awareness but one that gives empathy to others. When the  style works best coerces in a crisis to kickstart a turnaround or problem employees  authoritative when changes require a new vision or when a clear direction is needed,  affiliative to heal risks in a team or to motivate people during stressful circumstances,  democratic to build buy in or consensus or get input from value valuable employees pace  setting to get quick results from a highly motivated and competent team and coaching to help an employee improve performance or develop long term strength. overall impact on the  climate, the coersive has an overall negative impact it can only be used for a short time  successfully, authoritative is most strongly positive, the affiliative is positive, the Democratic  is has positives to it. The pace setting is negative overall, and works in certain situations with  certain people. And coaching is positive for the long term, not necessarily for the short term.  Now, all of that comes down to this you as the leader. How do you use your time? What what  do you define as the way of setting your schedule for the day and your priorities somebody  looked at this a long time ago is a man named Vilfredo Pareto, he was an Italian economist.  And back in the late 1800s, he developers become known as The Pareto principle or the 80/20 20 principle. Now, he said what he noticed was that in Italy, as he was looking at the economy of Italy, he saw that 20% of the people own 80% of the wealth. And then he began looking at  that, that same kind of percentage that as he looked at these percentages, he saw a  correlation often that 20/80 For instance, a note Notice that 80% of the results come from  20% of the efforts 80% of the activity of a company will produce only 20% of its resources.  80% of the usage of something is done by 20% of users, etc, etc, etc. Well, you can apply this  to the church, when you apply the Pareto principle to the church, you find that there is some  truth there, 80% of your income probably comes from 20% of your people, 20% of your  people are probably doing 80% of the work within your church. 80% of the complaints  probably come from 20% of the people or less. Crises are developed among the 80%, not the  20%, etc. Now, the purpose for me sharing that is as you look at your styles of leadership,  you've got to realize that you can be distracted from the important stuff by the less important stuff. For instance, where are you spending 80% of your time, often it will be with the people  who are going to help you less in achieving the vision and mission of the church. It will be the  people who are complaining, it will be the problems that come up, it will be a variety of things that I think are a tool that the enemy, frankly, after this long in ministry, that will just distract  you from moving on and helping the organization move on toward the future. I talked with a  church leader yesterday and frustrated, because he had this vision for where the church had  go. But there was a family in the church that was just causing all sorts of difficulties,  somebody who had accused him of saying something that he hadn't said, or he had said it in 

a certain context. And as a result, they call the elders and the elders had a meeting with the  pastor and the pastor is sitting there saying that's not what I said, and on and on, and how  hours spent dealing with this complaint. Rather than doing the activities necessary and  working with the people who are going to help you get the vision into reality. You know, when I entered ministry, as I shared in introducing myself, I thought my job was to be the chaplain  the pastor, the pastor, the shepherd, to everybody. And so whatever need came up, I was the  one I wanted people to turn to. And so whatever their situations, I ended up bringing people in for alcohol rehab, I ended up taking people into hospitals ended up doing all that type of  work, good work, wonderful work for the people. But it took me time and energy. And I wasn't  putting that time and energy into helping figure out how was that church going to define its  preferable future and move on to that preferable future, and who in the church was going to  be part of the process of doing that. And so it just became a frustrating process. In my last  church, we went through a period that I hopefully will talk about, in the future of this class,  known as the whitewater period, or the Pioneer homesteader conflict. It's a time of conflict in  an organization or a church, when the people who have been there, the number of people  who have been there is it is met in number or equal in number two, those who have come  since the leader came to pastor came? Well, we hit that part in California, and it was  whitewater it was just complaints coming from various places. And I was spending more and  more of my time and emotional energy, dealing with people who are unhappy about this that  are another thing because things were changing. And the elders of my church, as we talked  about, this took an unusual move. I've never heard about it done the same way since they  said to me, you are no longer to take complaints. Somebody calls you writes you a letter,  emails, you whatever, they turn it over to these two people, two of their elders were  designated as those who would, she would feel the complaints to deal with. And that freed up  my time and emotional energy to work toward the things we had agreed upon, or the future  of the church. So as you look at the styles of leader, remember that you have to give time to  them. You got to get time to thinking about which is the best course right now in the situation  you're facing with the future you're trying to define. And God will bless that. God will bless  that and hopefully the kingdom will be built. While some people be unhappy. Yes, they will be.  And that's tough. Especially for people like me, I know my family of origin created me to be a  people pleaser, somebody needs approval. You may be that way too. Many of us who entered  into ministry are defined that way, by the way, by psychological tests. And so I've got to know that if I'm going to really be part of God's Kingdom building activity, I want to do it well. I don't want to be distracted. So find ways to use your time effectively, and your styles effectively.  And God is gonna bless you as an effective leader.