Barnabas File

“ The best leaders don’t know just one style of leadership – they’re skilled at several and have the flexibility to switch between styles as the circumstances dictate.”—Daniel Goleman   Leadership style is a choice.  The approach the leader takes in working with their team impacts the leader, the team, and process outcomes.     Daniel Goleman is one of the foremost proponents of Emotional Intelligence, the concept of how effectively we manage our emotions and understand the emotions of others.  Of all his writings, I find his discussion of leadership types most challenging.   He suggests that there are six common leadership styles. In a recent  LinkedIn post , he revisits these styles.   Command--"Do What I Tell You"   The leader provides clear, decisive direction when it is felt essential, communicating certainty.   This style is essential in genuine crises—but overuse erodes morale and initiative.   I...

You don’t need an MBA to read The Executive Code , but if you have one and seek to rise to an executive role in an organization—and stay there—this one’s for you.   In  The Executive Code , strategic advisor Andrea Nicholas reveals the unspoken rules of C-suite leadership.  The C-suite (or C-level) refers to a company's highest-ranking senior executives.   Although I have never held a C-suite position, I did once have a corner office in a large organization with a significant responsibility for programming, personnel, and resources.  I have had enough experience at that level to affirm several of the author’s key concepts.   First, personal and professional growth go together.  The most important item here is understanding and using your guiding compass—your values. These are clearly seen in your calendar—how you spend your time, who you meet, and priorities when demands conflict.  Values build personal credibili...

  See, I am doing a new thing!     Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness     and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19, NIV)   In previous posts, we considered context, calling, and possibilities for church leadership in the future.  I am convinced that the Spirit of God is always at work among God’s people, providing ways forward that will allow the church’s mission to flourish.  In this post, I suggest five key issues for the church today, shifts in thinking from our current ways of dealing with them to new strategies, and leadership skills need to make the shift.  You may find my suggestions unsettling, even controversial, but please give them some thought.   First, a shift in theological training and the leadership roles of clergy.  With a decline in the number of seminary students who are seeking the Master of Divinity degree and the increase in ...

Do you have what it takes to be a coaching leader?  A coaching leader is someone who encourages another person to identify his or her goals, discover the resources available to pursue those goals, develop action plans together, and then walk along beside that person in the process of achieving the person’s goals.  A coaching leader can apply these skills in working with groups and teams as well, multiplying his or her impact as a coach by including others in the process.   A coaching leader is strong in the elements that Daniel Goleman attributes to emotional intelligence:   Self-awareness. Self-regulation. Motivation. Empathy. Social skills.   These are skills that can be learned once a person understands his or her own emotional intelligence profile.  The more that you, as a leader, can manage each of these areas, the higher your emotional intelligence.  Emotional intelligence is essential to be an effective coaching leader. In ad...

Would you rather be called a manager or a leader?  I would much rather been seen as a leader, but most positions I have filled required management functions as well. At its best, leadership is about vision, inspiration, and change, focusing on why and where an organization should go.  On the other hand, management is about execution, systems, and stability, focusing on how to get there efficiently.  Both require communication, problem-solving, decision-making skills.   Leaders set the direction and motivate people, whereas managers implement the plans and maintain order.   You might look at it in this way: Leadership (Visionary & Strategic) Focus: Big picture, long-term vision, innovation, organizational culture, purpose. Role: Inspires and influences; develops people; champions change. Authority Source: Personal power, ability to motivate and build trust. Mindset: Future-oriented, "What if?".   Man...

I n a leadership narrative style, Jim Ferrell offers us his fresh perspective on leadership.    In You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership , he writes:   “Management of the individual is dead, or soon will be; management of relation is the new leadership paradigm.”   Ferrell contends that “Relationships are what we build with each other. However, relation, by contrast, is simply a fact of existence. Relation isn’t built; it’s already there—a reality, not a construct. Everything is in relation, including us, so we are in relation whether we want it or not, and whether we have a relationship or not.”   Drawing on the work of philosophers and theologians such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Martin Buber, Carl Jung, and Gabriel Marcel, he calls leaders to a new level of transparency and awareness, leveraging relationship to achieve both personal and organizational success.    His view is very dynamic.  He points out, “We’...

The 20 th   century industrial model thrived on a tight command and control model.     It increased production, but it often fostered an “us” versus “them” approach--industry versus labor union, employer versus employee, “boss” versus workers.       In his New Leadership Paradigm , Steve Piersanti picks up on this in calling for a shift from the old paradigm of control to one of collaboration.  The control approach depended on coercion, dominance, and secrecy to “keep people in line.”  The new paradigm calls for collaboration.  Piersanti describes collaboration in this way: “Leadership is exercised through invitation, request, dialogue, persuasion, respect, openness, kindness, integrity, and partnership, without compulsion.”   This is the way that the church was intended to function.  In Romans 12:4-8, the apostle Paul writes,   For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not ...

Benjamin Franklin said this about mentoring:   “There are two ways to acquire wisdom; you can either buy it or borrow it.  By buying it, you pay full price in terms of time and cost to learn the lessons you need to learn.  By borrowing it, you go to those men and women who have already paid the price to learn the lessons and get their wisdom from them.”   Mentors are important in our personal and professional development.  They not only share their experiences with us, but they open doors by introducing us to people in our field and sponsoring us to be involved in special projects or events.   Is it possible that one can outgrow her or his mentor?  This is not only a possibility but very likely. In the Book of Acts, we read the story of a mentor-protégé relationship that prospered for a period but ended with some discord.  We sometimes forget that Barnabas was a mentor for Saul, the persecutor of the Way who would become i...

Leadership has been a popular topic of discussion down through the ages.  There has been an ebb and flow of emphases—authoritarian vs. participative; task vs. relational and many more. Take your choice.   A recent graphic by Kavit Haria that caught my attention exemplifies two contemporary approaches to leadership.  Haria suggests that many people tend to think that leadership is two things:  giving orders and always having an answer.  He then presents a broader understanding of what leadership  actually  is.  Here are his suggestions:     Making people feel safe.  Individuals contribute more to an organization when they feel that they are safe physically, intellectually, and professionally.  If a person fears or dreads coming to work, something is wrong.  A feeling of safety facilitates participation and personal investment.   Coaching.  A good leader calls forth...

Leaders will often say that the people in their organization are its most important asset.     Many probably believe this.     As I have been thinking about the development of clergy leaders, I wonder if lay and denominational leaders believe this.     Is there sufficient investment in retaining, developing, and maintain clergy leaders?      In his book  The Systems Leader , Robert E. Siegel suggests that investing in staff should be a priority concern. Let’s look at his observations and apply them to our church and denominational settings.   First, Siegel observes that it is cheaper and easier to retrain that replace. He writes, “Studies show that it often costs less to reskill a current employee than to recruit, hire, and train a new one. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, finding and training a new employee can cost as much as six to nine months of their salary.”    This means reskilling existing pe...

A staff member was going through a difficult personal situation.     It had nothing to do with his work, and he was not the instigator of the situation.     I knew it had to be addressed administratively.     My supervisor and his supervisor were quite ready to abdicate the resolution of this to me!     With some trepidation, I chose to take this to the governing group.     They listened patiently as I outlined the situation. Then, to my surprise, two of the committee very readily supported my recommendation to keep this staff member on board. In fact, all members of the committee expressed a great deal of compassion.   What are key leadership skills?  Various lists are posted from time to time and some writers even seek to identify the one essential skill for an effective leader.  I will not add such a list, but I would argue that there is one skill that every leader should seek to embody:  trust. ...

When you hear the term “performance review,” what is your first reaction?    Too often it creates a flutter in the stomach.   When we sign on for a position, whether in a church or any organization, we become accountable to work toward the fulfillment of the mission of that entity.  In most situations, a person is expected to meet with his or her supervisor at some point on a regular basis to evaluate whether that is happening.  I have conducted numerous “performance reviews” and have been the subject of some that were downright uncomfortable!  Over the years, I have learned from experience and from some mentors that there is a better way.   In his book The Performance Paradox , Eduardo Briceno identifies three ways that successful organizations have changed their performance management (performance review) systems.  These are very humane guidelines that would be helpful in a church or any faith-based organization.   First...

In his newest book on leadership , Mark Miller challenges the reader to a choice: Will you be a common leader, accepting the “common wisdom” that informs that stance, or will you be an uncommon leader who realizes there is a better way?   Miller has written the book to serve leaders who believe they can make a difference in the world, who care about personal excellence, and who are energized by producing tangible results.  These attributes apply to all leaders, not matter where they serve in the organization.    The five fundamental movements that the author delineates are:   See the future. Engage and develop others. Reinvent continuously. Value results and relationships. Embody a leader’s heart.   Similar processes can be found in other books on leadership such as those by James Kouzes and Barry Posner ( The Leadership Challenge )  but Miller brings an up-to-date spin to the process of being an effective leader.  Each section also prov...

The authors of this book begin by paraphrasing Frederick Buechner: “being an innovator means being called to where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”    They develop the argument that developers get stuck, and innovation fails often “because innovators pay too much attention to their deep gladness and not enough to the world’s deep hunger.”   At the heart of innovation is the focus on authentic demand, people buying and using something because it becomes part of their lives.  For example, no one knew they needed a phone that could do everything until Steve Jobs led Apple to create one.  Now no one can live without such a device. It has become part of our lives.    They identify three forms of innovation:  Informative, Transformative, and Formative. Informative innovations provide more of the same with incremental change and some increased value.  Transformative innovations change the user’s perception a...

The Gallup organization did a meta-analysis of 100 million employee interviews to identify what makes a highly engaged team.  The key factor is the manager, but one with a particular style of leading.  In a recent blog post, Jim Clifton reported, “ Gallup has discovered -- through studying what the best managers do differently -- that great managing is an act of coaching, not one of directing and administrating.”   At the center of compassionate accountability is coaching.  Good managers engage in regular coaching conversations to encourage, develop, and support team members.  In the blog, Clifton suggests several ways to implement this game changing strategy in an organization.   1.        Recognize that Millennials and Generation Z individuals want to learn and grow.  Coaching provides this opportunity. 2.       Announce to your organization that your leaders will move f...