Missionaries are people who are not afraid to take bold risks. They often march to a different drummer, and have an entrepreneurial spirit. Missionaries are a delightful yet peculiar people.
When it comes to leadership they face a quandary:
1. Individualistic missionaries are often called to work under the direction of missionaries or nationals with widely different cultural views of leadership.
2. Missionaries may be called to lead multi-cultural teams of fellow missionaries and nationals who have radically different cultural expectations of leadership.
3. Missionaries teach in pastoral training institutions in cultures with dissimilar ideas about the leadership role of the pastor.
4. The dominant worldwide assumption is that leaders have the responsibility and power to control people. The North American corporate CEO, the South American caudillo, the Asian Confucian elder brother, the Middle-Eastern paternalistic father-figure or the traditional African chief, all fit the model of leadership as power and control.
5. Missionaries in a post-modern culture react against a domineering view of leadership, feeling called to “do their own thing.” They often see leadership as a service function with little or no authority.
The Quandary
So here is the quandary. Many post-modern missionaries have an egalitarian view of leadership, while the rest of the world assumes that leadership is control. Yet today’s missionaries working with bottom-up leadership styles are expected to work under leaders and to develop leaders in cultures with top-down assumptions about leadership.
A Possible Solution
Leadership is a spiritual gift mentioned in Romans 12:8, but footnotes show that the word means to “provide for others” or to “give aid.” The list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:28 uses the word “administration” in some translations, but in others it is translated “guidance” or “those who can get others to work together.” A biblical understanding of “the gift of leadership” challenges most cultural assumptions.
In one sense all believer have spiritual gifts and are responsible to use their gifts to influence the Body of Christ. In this sense, influence is leadership and thus all believers are leaders. But some believers have the gift of fanning into flame the gifts of others, coordinating gifted people and helping them to move in the same direction. This is the likely meaning of the gift of leadership in Romans 12:8. Maybe a way to describe the difference is to suggest that all believers are leaders with a lower-case l, while some are Leaders, upper-case L. In God’s eyes coordinating Leaders are no more or less important than leaders with general gifts.
Here is a tentative definition: Good leadership is the spiritual gift of proactively harmonizing, enhancing and focusing the spiritual gifts of others toward a common vision of the Kingdom of God.
Often leaders are thought to be either task-oriented or people-oriented. This definition assumes neither “leader as controller” or “leader as cheerleader.” The model takes the task of the Kingdom seriously and assumes that the leader will be proactive and take initiative, while being an encourager and a developer of people.
Mission Leaders are not servant door-mats, watching everyone to do what is right in their own eyes. But neither are they servant dictators, paternalistically making decisions for ignorant missionaries.
I’m hopeful that this model of leadership will allow missionaries to be more effective in multi-cultural settings.
* It brings out the best of the controller and the encourager models while overcoming the weaknesses of both.
* It allows missionaries to be proactive, to take initiative and to keep focused on the vision, while working under people with diverse leadership styles.
* It has the potential of being a bridge between the dominant modern view of leadership as power and the post-modern passive view of leadership.
* It provides a starting point and a goal for developing leaders in other cultures.
Few things in life are more rewarding than working with missionaries and church leaders of other cultures. I often say I am working with a “dream team” of mission leadership. I pray that the Lord will continue to show us how to harmonize and enhance the spiritual gifts He has given believers in every culture so that we may be used to fulfill a vision of His worldwide Kingdom.
