The Illusion of Control

Feeling the winter blahs? For many, February is a downer month...winter's been around for awhile (maybe too long a while), spring has yet to arrive (depending on what the groundhog says) and many people have fled to warmer climates. What do you do to encourage yourself?

This is our second opportunity to share some of the "illusions" that leaders in churches and other non-profit organizations face every day. If you missed the intro and our first entry on the topic of "The Illusion of Health", please feel free to check it out at http://cmi-blog.blogspot.com/.

A few years ago, we had the opportunity to sit down for half an hour and chat with Bob Russell who, in the late 1960's, became the pastor of a small congregation of some 60 people in Louisville Kentucky. By 2006, when he retired, that church (now Southeast Christian Church) had become one of the largest churches in America, with over 18,000 people attending the four worship services every weekend.

We had one question for him: "Bob, in your view, what was “The Tipping Point” (Malcolm Gladwell) for your ministry at Southeast? What was it that made the difference in the church progressing incrementally year over year to where it began to grow exponentially, by hundreds and possibly even thousands every year?"

His answer wasn't quite what we expected. It was simply this: “The church really took off when I realized that there were actually better leaders in my church than me, and my work was really in figuring out how to get out their way, and let them lead. I realized my job was to simply pastor them.”

Out of that conversation, we realized that what he was really saying was that it was about letting go of control - about recognizing and getting over the control we believe we need to have as a leader. When Bob was willing to let go and let other leaders be free to run with the direction that was collectively set and agreed upon, things really blossomed.

This then is the next illusion - "The Illusion of Control."

We have reflected on this over the last few years as we try to understand the current state of the local church in North America and where all the leaders, that are so desperately needed, have gone. We wonder whether behaviours associated with the "Illusion of Control" - the belief that says a pastor or a church staff or even its elected leaders need to maintain control over absolutely everything - has actually prevented high capacity leaders from doing what they do best (i.e. inspire, motivate & call people to action) and pushed them, not away from their faith or passion for Kingdom work, but out of involvement in a local church. It becomes an "us" versus "them" mentality. "They" are the ones that have a problem with leadership, not "us." Don't get us wrong, there does always need to be a point person, one who is ultimately responsible for health of the organism/organization, but maybe there is something deeper based on the approach or our attitude as we lead.

This is why we spend so much of our time helping leaders understand their work from the perspective of "transformational leadership" - true servant, Christ-like, empowering leadership - where the focus is on helping people grow and become better leaders themselves, rather than taking a control perspective through "transactional leadership", where the focus is on "what I need to be doing in order to be seen as the leader."

Some questions to consider for this month would be: What kind of a leader are you? Do you, as a leader, assume too much control? What can you change about your own leadership style to help people become all of whom God created them to be?

And a final thought: "if you keep boiling the water... at some point, the steam must escape."