David Gergen is a former White House advisor to United StatesPresidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. He now directs the Harvard UniversityCenter
for Public Leadership. He recently wrote
a blog article about the deepening leadership crisis we are facing. Here are some of the excerpts from his
article…
“Yesterday’s stunning rejection by the House of
Representatives of this financial rescue plan represents one of the clearest
signs yet of the deepening leadership problems we are facing as a people. The pleas of the President, Congressional
leadership, the business community, and the press were all ignored and defied
by a majority of members in the House… (One of) the reasons so many voted
against the package was that the public has been against it – and in turn, the
public has not been persuaded because it has lost trust in our national
leadership. And THAT is a serious
problem…”
“At Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership … we have taken
public surveys in each of the past three years measuring confidence in our
nation’s leadership.. The results
haven’t been pretty. In the fall of
2005, some 65% said we have a leadership crisis in our country. By 2006, the number had risen to 69%. And last fall, no less than 77% declared
there was a crisis of leadership. 79%
said the United States would decline unless we get better leaders.”
“Please note that this survey did not reflect just an
unhappiness with President George W. Bush. It was widespread across 12 different institutions and leadership
groupings. Only the military and the
medical profession were given relatively high marks this past fall. The institutions and groups with the lowest
levels of confidence were smack in the middle of the recent financial
meltdown. Four of the five lowest rated
groups were business, Congress, the executive branch, and the press. No wonder the “leaders” of these institutions
had so much trouble persuading the general public about the seriousness of our
financial mess. What we see today then
is a leadership vacuum.”
According to the survey, when asked “How much confidence do
you have in the leadership of the following sectors?” with one = none, two =
not much, three = a moderate amount, and four = a great deal, here were the
results:
Military 3.15
Medical 3.02
Supreme Court 2.90
Educational 2.84
Nonprofit and Charitable 2.83
Religious 2.80
State Government 2.78
Business 2.75
Local Government 2.70
Congress 2.53
Executive Branch 2.43
Press 2.26
In his book Eyewitness to Power, David Gergen
identifies seven characteristics that are needed for the leaders of today’s
organizations:
An inner mastery,
A central, compelling purpose rooted in moral values,
A capacity to persuade,
Skills in working within the system,
A fast start,
A strong, effective, team, and
A passion that inspires others to keep the flame alive.
As we talk about the paradigm shift going on in the church
in the western world, from an attractional and maintenance model to a more
missional model, one of the key ingredients is leadership. What does a survey like this tell us about
how our religious leadership is being perceived by the culture around us? What does this tell us about the kind of
leadership challenges we should expect and how we should respond? There are leadership skills, habits, and
capacities that are essential for pastors and religious leaders, that we may
have never developed or been told that we needed before.
David Gergen says we have a leadership vacuum today. Do you think that is true of the church? Can you identify some church leaders that you
admire and respect?
The Allelon Missional Leadership Network is one group that
has helped me think through what church leadership for our times needs to look
like. I believe leadership is about:
Creating an environment,
Character and authenticity and courage,
Allowing the vision to emerge from the bottom up, not giving
it from the top down,
Creating meaning in the midst of chaos, and
Shaping a new imagination, not tips and techniques.
We have a leadership crisis. We have a leadership vacuum. We
are in a time of transition. How will
God create a new leadership to move us forward during this time of great
uncertainty and great opportunity?
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