Vision & The Spirituality of Leadership

Introduction

Much has been written on the topic of leadership. Most of the literature eventually takes one of two tracks: practical direction for the secular marketplace; or spiritual guidance for the Christian, which is then typically applied in traditional ministry settings. Few arguments seem to make a satisfactory connection between the two by bringing Christian leadership back into the marketplace. Without discounting the great value of the work that has gone before, this essay proposes that connection. Of all the qualities of leadership, it is vision that moves leadership from the secular to the spiritual. Spirituality, however, is not limited to that which is distinctly Christian. Therefore it must be clear that it is vision in the counsel of God that further separates the sacred from the merely spiritual. Both types of vision may be observed and applied in either church or marketplace.

We will begin by seeking an understanding of leadership: what it is, and what it is not. We will see that while leadership naturally implies interaction with others, it is also intensely personal. Vision is the quality that characterizes powerful leadership, but what exactly is vision? We will learn that while vision appropriately includes others, it too is very personal. Vision is what makes leadership spiritual. Therefore, we must seek an understanding of spirituality. Spirituality suggests power, but power presents problems. So we will explore the positive side of power and consider how one might recognize its source. All leaders, Christian or otherwise, are free to choose the source of their vision as well as how and where best to apply it.

Leadership

Leadership is a high calling. According to Max Stackhouse, business leaders, increasingly, are the stewards of civilization.[1] Without leadership, organizations are resigned to the status quo, or subject to atrophy. In a popular book targeting business leaders, Blanchard, Hybels and Hodges make the bold statement that the only reason for pursuing excellence with customers, or growing profitably, is to honor God and to help others reach their highest potential.[2] Honoring God and developing people in the marketplace requires competent and creative leadership. Max DePree says that “the goals of the organization are best met when the goals of the people in the organization are met at the same time.” Unfortunately, “these two sets of goals are seldom the same.”[3] Not only does leadership have its challenges, even the definition of leadership is subject to misunderstanding.

The word leadership is ambiguous. “To an extent, leadership is like beauty: it’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it.”[4] Newspaper editor Gloria Anderson adds: “You can’t make being a leader your principal goal, any more than you can make being happy your goal. In both cases, it has to be the result, not the cause.”[5] In order to gain a greater understanding of what leadership is, it is helpful to consider what it is not. Leadership is not about motivation. “Employees bring their own motivation… What people need from work is to be liberated, to be involved, to be accountable, and to reach for their potential.”[6] Neither is leadership about personal achievement or recognition. Jim Houston reacts against the proliferation of leadership literature: “The high value placed upon a single person with his or her own aesthetic notion of what is due him or her is not unlike the contemporary cult of ‘leadership.’”[7] Leadership also is not synonymous with management.

It has been said that management is doing things right, while leadership is doing the right things. Warren Bennis describes the difference between managers and leaders as the difference between those who surrender to the context, and those who master it.[8] The root origin of manage is a word meaning ‘hand.’ To manage, then, is to handle, or maintain. By contrast, the word lead, at its root, means ‘go, travel’ or ‘guide.’[9] Etymologically, therefore, the term leadership evokes the notion of a journey. Leadership involves anticipation of the future and the ability to take people there. “Leadership is a reciprocal relationship between those who choose to lead and those who choose to follow.”[10] Followers need leaders to show the way. The popular term ‘servant leader’ refers to those whose paramount aim is the best interests of those they lead. According to Kouzes and Posner, servant leadership is rooted in love – of products, services, constituents, clients, customers, and work – and love may be the best-kept leadership secret of all.[11]

But this is an incomplete picture. Leadership is not only about others; it is also personal:

It’s not about the corporation, the community, or the country. It’s about you. If people don’t believe in the messenger, they won’t believe the message. If people don’t believe in you, they won’t believe what you say. And if it’s about you, then it’s about your beliefs, your values, your principles. It’s also about how true you are to your values and beliefs.[12]

This means that character counts because character directly reflects the source of a leader’s belief system. A good way to see that source is through a leader’s vision.

The Role of Vision in Leadership

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained

(Proverbs 29:18, NASB)

A compelling vision is essential to great leadership. On this, the experts agree. While Bennis lists passion, integrity, trust, curiosity and daring, as ingredients of a leader, first among them is a guiding vision.[13] Leighton Ford says leaders get attention through vision.[14] George Barna: “Vision is to a leader as air is to a human being: Without it, you die.”[15] DePree: “To carry out its work, the organization needs from a leader a clear statement of its vision and its strategy.”[16] Blanchard et al: “‘All great organizations have a visionary leader at the top who maintains a clear picture of the kind of organization it’s going to be. People are inspired by vision.’”[17] Kouzes and Posner: “Leaders inspire a shared vision.”[18] Hybels: “Vision is at the very core of leadership.”[19]

Examples of visionary leadership abound. In 1774 John Adams declared a vision of a new nation, a union of thirteen states independent from Parliament and the King of England; in 1776, the United States of America was born. In 1789 William Wilberforce began a tireless campaign against slavery; in 1883, four days before his death, Parliament passed a bill completely abolishing slavery. In the late 1800s the Wright brothers began working on a flying machine; on December 17, 1903 they made history at Kitty Hawk. In the early twentieth century Henry Ford vowed to make an affordable automobile; fifteen years later he had produced millions of Model Ts. In the 1940s Billy Graham had a dream of reaching people for God; to date, over one billion have heard Dr. Graham present the gospel.[20] But what exactly is vision?

First of all, vision is not to be mistaken for mission. Mission describes an overall purpose for existence, whereas vision is focused guidance that helps determine the unique way in which one has been called to fulfill a particular mission.[21] According to Peter Block: “A vision is really a dream created in our waking hours of how we would like the organization to be.” It differs from mission in that mission is simply a statement of what business we are in.[22]

Vision, in the marketplace, may legitimately carry a variety of meanings. That leaders have vision may mean they think longer term; or that they see where their system fits in a larger context; or that they can describe a possible future that lifts and moves people; or that they can actually discern, in the clutter and confusion of the present, the elements that determine what is to come.[23] Hybels offers this crisp definition: “Vision is a picture of the future that produces passion.”[24] For Christians, vision may represent the revealed will of God. Therefore, staying vision-focused keeps Christians God-focused; the vision is a reminder of dependency.[25]

Yet vision requires not only dependency on God but also on others, for there is a shared aspect of vision. Former sociology professor-turned-playwright, Philip Slater, provides this illustration from the theatre explaining how creativity is magnified in community:

Inexperienced playwrights often want to direct their own plays so they can make sure everything conforms to their vision. The result is usually sterile and often disastrous. If the vision comes through the writing, the director will see creative ways of enhancing that vision – ways the playwright never dreamed of. And so will the actors, designers, composers, and so on. I tell playwriting students never to write stage directions that tell an actor how to do or say something, since it limits the actor’s options and encourages phony gestures. A good actor, I tell them, will have a dozen ways of creating the effect you want – ways you haven’t thought of – and will choose the one most natural and the one that most powerfully expresses that vision.[26]

Similarly, in a marketplace context, vision may begin with the leader, and gain clarity as it is communicated in community.

There are, however, limits to the communal aspect of vision; like leadership, vision also has an intimately personal nature.

Another contemporary myth about vision-crafting is that it should be a shared idea, thus reducing the risk of others failing to buy into it. As a consequence, missions and visions that were once extraordinary ideas are adapted, modified, and pummeled until their fire and passion have been squeezed out of them. These ‘consensus’ missions and visions reach for the lowest common denominator where an accord can be built – egalitarian and democratic no doubt, but soulless and lacking in magic. In other words, they suffer from a fatal flaw – compromise – and this leads to mediocrity.

Lance Secretan continues:

The power of a compelling Cause rests in the soul of its creator, because Cause springs from the soul. It is a spiritual statement from one soul and cannot be the result of many. It comes from a deep place of knowing – some conviction that a richly imagined future could, in some way, dramatically and positively change the world. Others can offer their input, help, advice, and even help to fine-tune, strengthen, and wordsmith it. But in the end, a magnetic Cause is a one-of-a-kind thing that cannot be cobbled together by a committee or a team.[27]

In addressing the business community, Secretan uses words like ‘creator’, ‘soul’, ‘spiritual’, and capitalizes the word ‘Cause.’ Although the source of Secretan’s inspiration is not clear in this passage, he suitably shows that vision is spiritual.

Vision represents one of the clearest distinctions between leader and manager:

By focusing attention on a vision, the leader operates on the emotional and spiritual resources of the organization, on its values, commitment and aspirations. The manager, by contrast, operates on the physical resources of the organization, on its capital, human skills, raw materials and technology.[28]

This is the crux of the argument: vision moves leadership from secular to spiritual, but spiritual need not necessarily mean Christian. Only vision inspired by God may truly be considered sacred. Since God is Lord of all, he is able, through the Holy Spirit, to use any leader in any situation for the working out of his will.

Spirituality though, like leadership, is a difficult concept to pin down. Parker Palmer describes these two words as among the vaguest in our language. When you put them together, he says, you get something even more vague.[29] Katherine Tyler Scott, a leadership development consultant for church and business, says arriving at consensus on the meaning of leadership is an elusive accomplishment. Agreeing on the meaning of spirituality is equally challenging. Unlike leadership – which everyone agrees is necessary – we lack certainty about the value and emphasis that spirituality should have in our public lives. Scott writes:

Immediately we can see that the objective definitions lead us in different directions: spirit evokes images of an intangible and internal world, while leadership focuses on the visible and the external reality. Spirit is a matter of being and becoming, of creation and recreation, while leadership is doing, acting, performing. The definition of spirit invites contemplation, analysis, and insight, while that of leadership directs our attention to visible results.[30]

Spirituality and religion are not quite the same either. Whereas religion is a system of beliefs and practices shared by a community, spirituality more precisely describes the way people live out their beliefs, values, and convictions in daily life. For many, spirituality represents a search for meaning. Some have suggested that, where spirituality is the goal, religion is a path. Therefore it would be wrong to assume that only Christians seek spirituality. It is more accurate to say that, for those who do not know Christ, spirituality deals in the realm of the unknown. And danger lurks in the unknown.

Spiritual Power in Leadership

Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbable saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.

(Zachariah 4:6, NASB)

When leaders lead with vision, they deal in that which is spiritual, and are presented with the problem of power. The demon in power is pride. Leaders must be aware of the principalities and powers and recognize their own frailties, for “power can take us down the path of the demonic.”[31] According to Henri Nouwen, the second temptation of Christ was to do something spectacular; something that could win great applause. The third temptation was the temptation of power. (We will deal with the first temptation later.) “What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.”[32] “Rare,” says Andy Stanley “is the visionary who is able to maintain a spirit of dependency and humility in the face of public success.”[33]

Good leaders therefore must vow to bring authority and submission into proper balance by modeling leadership within the context of servanthood.[34] DePree even goes so far as to suggest the practice of leadership without power.[35] Leadership and power are not the same, but they are correlated. Power has acquired such a bad name that many good people persuade themselves that they want nothing to do with it. While ethical and spiritual apprehensions are understandable, no leader can legitimately renounce power.[36] John Gardner draws this analogy:

To say a leader is preoccupied with power is like saying that a tennis player is preoccupied with making shots an opponent cannot return. Of course leaders are preoccupied with power! The significant questions are: What means do they use to gain it? How do they exercise it? To what ends do they exercise it?[37]

Perhaps it is helpful here to recall that, for the Christian, the marks of spiritual power include: love, humility, self-limitation, joy, vulnerability, submission, and freedom.[38] This underscores why it is important for leaders to know where the power is coming from.

Christians must be rooted in a “permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find there the source for their words, advice, and guidance.”[39] This means dwelling in the presence of God. Receiving a vision from God is both deeply spiritual and deeply practical. It involves the quiet, internal work of making one’s heart ready, as well as the energetic, external work of exploring and experimenting.[40] Responding to vision need not be overtly mystical. Often, the vision does not originate with the leader personally, but rather from others. The leader may be the one to choose the image from those available at the moment, articulate it, give it form and legitimacy, and focus attention on it, but closer analysis reveals that the leader is often not the one who has conceived the vision in the first place. [41] In other words, leaders must be good listeners, and resist the temptation of self-reliance.

Application and Conclusions

In the marketplace, as elsewhere, all leaders have a choice: on the firm foundation of faith they may wait upon God for vision, or they may forge ahead with a vision rooted elsewhere. Now, according to Nouwen, Jesus’ first temptation was ‘to be relevant,’ by turning stones into bread. “I am telling you all this,” says Nouwen “because I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.”[42] Is it not instead possible that Jesus’ first temptation was to be self-sufficient? If Christian leaders fail to be relevant – if their vision cannot stand the test of the marketplace – the Holy Spirit can, and does, use other means to accomplish God’s will.

In the marketplace, the Christian leader’s primary goal is not conversion. The best way to bring glory to God is through excellence in pursuing a God-given vision. Stanley concurs: “The truth is, our secular pursuits have more kingdom potential than our religious ones.”[43]

This essay began by looking at leadership. While leadership most certainly involves others, it is also very personal. Effective leadership is grounded in a compelling vision and, while vision embraces others, it too is intimately personal. Vision is the quality that distinguishes leadership as spiritual, but while vision moves leadership from the secular to the spiritual realm, spirituality is not exclusive to Christianity. Only vision rooted in the revealed will of God is truly sacred. Even so, God can, and does work through leaders who do not profess to know Christ. All good leaders respect the power inherent in spirituality and become instruments of the Holy Spirit, whether they operate in the church or in the marketplace.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barna, George. The Power of Team Leadership: Finding Strength in Shared Responsibility. Colorado Springs, Colorado: WaterBrook Press, 2001.

Bennis, Warren. On Becoming a Leader. London, Random House, 1998.

Bennis, Warren and Burt Nanus. Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge. 2^nd ed. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 1986.

Blanchard, Ken, Bill Hybels and Phil Hodges. Leadership by the Book: Tools to Transform Your Workplace. New York: WaterBrook Press, 1999.

Block, Peter. The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1987.

Bolman, Lee G. and Terrence G. Deal. Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001.

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.

DePree, Max. Leadership Jazz. New York, New York: Dell, 1992.

________. “Theory Fastball” in On Moral Business: Classical and Contemporary Resources in Ethics in Economic Life. Max L. Stackhouse, Dennis P. McCann and Shirley J. Roels, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 572-577.

Ford, Leighton. Transforming Leadership: Jesus’ Way of Creating Vision, Shaping Values & Empowering Change. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1991.

Foster, Richard J. The Challenge of the Disciplined Life: Christian Reflections on Money, Sex & Power. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1985.

Gardner, John W. On Leadership. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1990.

Houston, James, M. The Mentored Life: From Individualism to Personhood. Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002.

Hybels, Bill. Courageous Leadership. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002.

Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995.

________. Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Lattore, Patrick. “Leadership” in The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity: An A-to-Z Guide to Following Christ in Every Aspect of Life, Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens, eds. (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 564-568.

Nouwen, Henri J.M. In the Name of Jesus: Reflection on Christian Leadership. New York: Crossroad, 2001.

May, William F. “The Virtues of the Business Leader” in On Moral Business: Classical and Contemporary Resources in Ethics in Economic Life. Max L. Stackhouse, Dennis P. McCann and Shirley J. Roels, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 692-700.

Palmer, Parker J. “Leading from Within: Out of the Shadow, into the Light” in Spirit at Work: Discovering the Spirituality in Leadership. Jay A. Conger and Associates, eds. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1994), 19-40.

Scott, Katherine Tyler. “Leadership and Spirituality: A Quest for Reconciliation” in Spirit at Work: Discovering the Spirituality in Leadership. Jay A. Conger and Associates, eds. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1994), 63-99.

Secretan, Lance. Inspire: What Great Leaders Do. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2004.

Slater, Philip. “Leading Yourself” in The Future of Leadership. Warren Bennis, Gretchen M. Spreitzer, Thomas G. Cummings, eds. (San Francisco, Ca: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 103-115.

Stackhouse, Max. “Introduction: Foundations and Purposes” in On Moral Business: Classical and Contemporary Resources in Ethics in Economic Life. Max L. Stackhouse, Dennis P. McCann and Shirley J. Roels, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 10-34.

Stanley, Andy. Visioneering: God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Personal Vision. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah, 1999.

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[1] Max L. Stackhouse, “Introduction: Foundations and Purposes” in On Moral Business, Max L. Stackhouse, Dennis P. McCann and Shirley J. Roels, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 12.

[2] Ken Blanchard, Bill Hybels and Phil Hodges, Leadership by the Book (New York, NY: WaterBrook, 1999), 163.

[3] Max DePree, Leadership Jazz (New York, NY: Dell, 1992), 23.

[4] Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (London: Random House, 1989), 1.

[5] Ibid., 131.

[6] Max DePree, “Theory Fastball” in OMB, 572.

[7] James M. Houston, The Mentored Life (Colorado Springs, CO.: NavPress, 2002), 29.

[8] Bennis, On Becoming a Leader, 44.

[9] James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995), 36.

[10] James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, Credibility (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 1.

[11] Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge, 14.

[12] Kouzes and Posner, Credibility, xiv-xv.

[13] Bennis, On Becoming a Leader, 39-41.

[14] Leighton Ford, Transforming Leadership (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991), 26.

[15] George Barna, The Power of Team Leadership (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook, 2001), 37.

[16] Max DePree, Leadership Jazz, 26.

[17] Blanchard et all, Leadership by the Book, 125.

[18] Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge, 11.

[19] Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 31.

[20] Ibid., 29-30.

[21] Barna, The Power of Team Leadership, 41.

[22] Peter Block, The Empowered Manager (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1987),113.

[23] John H. Gardner, On Leadership (New York, NY: Free Press, 1990), 130-131.

[24] Hybels, Courageous Leadership, 32.

[25] Andy Stanley, Visioneering (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1999), 57.

[26] Philip Slater, “Leading Yourself” in The Future of Leadership, Warren Bennis, Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Thomas G. Cummings, eds. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 114.

[27] Lance Secretan, Inspire! (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004), 68.

[28] Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders (New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 1986), 85.

[29] Parker J. Palmer, “Leading from Within” in Spirit at Work, Jay A. Conger and Associates, eds. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1994), 27.

[30] Katherine Tyler Scott, “Leadership and Spirituality” in Spirit at Work, Jay A. Conger and Associates, eds. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1994), 63, 65.

[31] Richard J. Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1985), 13, 179.

[32] Henri J.M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus (New York, NY: Crossroad, 2001), 38, 57, 59.

[33] Stanley, Visioneering, 67.

[34] Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life, 12.

[35] DePree, Leadership Jazz, 179.

[36] Gardner, On Leadership, 55.

[37] Ibid., 57.

[38] Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life, 201-207.

[39] Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, 31.

[40] Hybels, Courageous Leadership, 38.

[41] Bennis and Nanus, Leaders, 88-89.

[42] Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, 17. [italics mine]

[43] Stanley, Visioneering, 225.