every so often, i come across little storms like this one, which seem to generate a lot of heat and not much light. a debate about whether senior pastors should look like corporate CEOs is silly, in my view. i see all this angst about the title “CEO”, which also seems oddball to me – “chief executive officer”… well, that title is all about the senior person in the organization who makes executive decisions on behalf of the corporate body… what is so evil about that title?! it perfectly describes the function of the leader in that environment, and in many ways also describes exactly what most senior pastors do – they make executive decisions on behalf of the corporate body (the church) as the leader. what’s so weird or odd about that?
i think the issues are really more about stereotypes and baggage, most of which aren’t always very accurate, and at the heart of many of the discussions as i attempt to interpret the naysayers is largely an “anti-leadership” perspective, which i have argued against in the past as totally unbiblical. the bible is replete with example after example of God instituting and using leaders to guide and manage his people on his behalf. this kind of stewardship is everywhere, and i defy anyone to try and show that leadership doesn’t matter or is somehow not the way God works in and through his community. these leaders carrid a variety of labels and tags, but they all had one thing in common – their function as leaders within God’s holy community.
so, i don’t think these debates are about titles at all – in the end, i think they actually are about whether or not you believe in leadership. at the end of the day, i don’t particularly like the “CEO” tag for leaders in the church because i think the label is tainted with way too many connotations from the business world that are not great examples of what is otherwise a perfectly sensible moniker describing what most senior pastors and church leaders actually do. frankly, i’m not sure i even like “senior pastor”, because i think that has its own issues as a tag, so just call me “mark” (matt 23:8) – i’m not too interested in titles, just the calling I have in jesus to lead his people towards greater love and obedience of the Lord.
14 comments ↓
Yes I think you have bought clarity to the discussion.
All I would say about titles is that sometimes they are useful when seeking to transition a culture. In a similar way to a constitution, which in itself does not change the reality, titles can help change perceptions.
Calling yourself just ‘Mark’ may be useful in certain community cultures, calling yourself ‘team leader’ or even ‘senior pastor’ may be useful. I think you have to contextualise your decision, and maybe even change titles as the community journeys and evolves.
Clearly we disagree. I see the CEO an adaption from the business world with all of its associated baggage.
A disbelief in leadership? Hardly.
Its simply a protest against the dominant imagination of leadership in Christian churches and a request to consider what the biblical motifs are.
The fact that ‘we do it’ (CEO leadership) does not legitimise it.
I have said plenty of times that we can learn from others (business world etc) but pastor as CEo seems a hell of an anathema to me
i like to call Mark:
Captain Cranky-Pants
hamo… you precisely prove my point! you are reacting against “associated baggage”…
i don’t get the issues… we’re not “doing it” because CEOs are doing it… we’re doing it because that’s what leaders do , regardless of the space. the specifics and nuances of leadership will obviously shift based on the nature of the organization and its purposes, but generally there are a set of core leadership practices that are common to most environments.
in fact, if you track with publishing in the business world, you will notice that far from the church taking business leadership principles, there has been a massive flow over the past several years of the business world seeking wisdom from spiritual sources so there’s a lot of borrowing going on both ways.
i don’t think you personally are anti-leadership (and given your enormous influence over many others and the way they think, it would be a strange position for you to hold anyway), but i see in many of these debates folks who jump in with what are plainly (to me) anti-leadership positions, largely out of a reaction to poor leadership experiences, but not based out of a solid biblical understanding of leadership.
it would actually be interesting to know exactly what things you think that an excellent CEO does that are totally out of order in a church setting? i’m not talking about greedy idiots who lack integrity and are actually poor organizational leaders, but there are plenty examples of good CEOs out there. what is it that they do, given some basic filtering for the environment that they operate in, that you would have great objection to if it showed up in the church?
as for shaggy… “cranky”?! dude, that really cuts deeps… :-)
Mark – one of the core issues is the results orientation that naturally accompanies the CEO role.
I don’t think it is a stereotype to say that CEOs are expected to deliver the goods – or get fired – or fire some people.
The language of the CEO is something I think we need to drop because of its associated baggage and its direct implications.
i intend to come at this from the other angle on my blog shortly and look at the ‘if not CEO then what?’ question for those who may be leading churches.
I believe it is an important question, but I think we have too easily allowed the CEO language to control us. I am convinced it needs some weighty push back
As a commenter on the original post on Ra’ah I also would like to back Hamo and say that I certainly am not anti-leadership.
Again this appears to be the caricature thrown out there whenever there is disagreement on this topic. There are extremes on both sides – the “everyone’s a leader” brigade found in some variants of the house-church movement is one and the autocratic “God’s gift to the church” senior pastor seen in some pentecostal/fundamentalist circles is another.
I believe there is a biblical middle ground that involves true collaborative leadership (in the form of an eldership – if you like) that recognises leadership as a gift given by God to his church, and recognises that not everyone has this gift, but which allows those who clearly have it to work in a collaborative way to collectively lead his church.
So lets leave the “anti-leadership” extreme to the side, its no more helpful in this conversation than the autocratic CEO extreme.
i think many excellent CEOs would be quite disturbed at your portrayal of their role.
where’s the stuff about working to achieve an organizational mission and vision, building teams, growing good people to reach their potential, being a good steward of the resources of the organization, being a responsible participant in the community, leaving a legacy and issues of succession, etc.? i’ll tell you now that many CEOs in businesses take these issues a lot more seriously than leaders in the church do, to our shame.
i think your portrayal is one-dimensional and stereotypical.
personally, i’m not interested in “CEO language” either (whatever that exactly is), but i think there is a “language” of leadership that probably is common to those who hold positions where they are responsible for the future of a community/organization and for the people within it.
i think one of the mistakes people make when they talk about CEOs is to misunderstand the role – just like pastors in churches, most of the time they do not own the business, they are just stewards of it over a period of time and are accountable to others (the board) for their leadership – probably much more accountable than most church leaders. i think there are definitely things we can learn from them in that sense.
i just think that to make an argument against “CEO leadership” built off a poor definition of what that is, is probably not all that helpful at all. i know it gets certain people’s pulses up a bit and starts a wash of debate and discussion, but in my view it’s more heat than light.
as i said, i don’t think the specific label of CEO fits within our organizational context as a church, but the leadership functions of that role in business and other entities aren’t (i don’t think) totally different to functions in the church (or non-profit bodies). i see many parallels (as well as key contextual differences), and i’m happy to learn what i can from wherever i find wisdom… “all truth is God’s truth” (gaebelein?)
in response to andrew… i agree with your comments about extremes, and i think i’ve tried to communicate here that i’m talking about excellent leadership, and some of my comments ought to clue you in to the fact that i’m not very keen on autocratic leadership (which is what i think many people who have views about this tend to be reacting against).
and, i would suggest, most CEOs in good organizations are not autocratic – the cultures and accountability structures prevent this. by definition, a CEO is not intended to be an autocrat – he/she is the executive leadership instrument of the organization’s board.
of course, there probably are some autocrats, but that’s not what i’m talking, in business or the church.
Mark – you asked what I had issue with and I wrote “one of the core issues is the results orientation”
As I said above, I agree we can learn from business and of course there will be overlap in some of the best practices eg ‘level 5 leadership’, but we cannot avoid the impressions that usage of the term CEO gives.
Perhaps because we stand in different places we see the world very differently. From where I stand the term CEO is one I would reject from ecclesiastical vocab because of the negative connotations and its perception.
Yes – there are church based ‘CEOs’ who function in a more Christlike way than more collaborative leaders and yes there are dickhead dictators in so called house churches.
Good leaders will generally be good leaders wherever they go
I agree with Andrew – “results orientation” is one of the key issues, or pieces of “baggage”, associated (rightly or wrongly) with the CEO-type model of church leadership often being wrestled with around the place.
However, to suggest a rejection of this type of outcomes-focussed purpose-driven-ness is a rejection of leadership as a whole is simply not true… but, our definitions of leadership are quite different.
Unfortunately Mark, if such discussions are deemed to simply be more “heat than light” by major players in large-scale church denominations like yourself, there is little hope of any significant discussion ever being entered into between the different parties.
What I think you seem to overlook Mark is that many “doom sayers” have passionately supported and reinforced the same systems (CEO-type) they are now critiquing – they have sacrificed for it, wept over it, celebrated with, and trevailed on behalf of etc etc and to seem to suggest that such discussions are nothing more than bitter mud slinging (my words) and anti-leadership, sucks the life out of the deeply significant wrestling they are confronting as they seek to faithfully respond to the teachings of Christ in this place at this point of history.
In other words, unlike many, some have now stood firmly in both camps, not just one. Therefore, I would like to suggest – precisely because they have travelled along BOTH paths, they may able to see certain church issues more clearly and with more balanced understanding than those who have only occupied one of these spaces. Surely, that has to be a possibility worth considering????
well, matt, that’s a lot of quite strong stuff you had to say there, which i think entirely reinforces my view that there is more heat than light in these debates.
firstly, i don’t represent anyone other my own thinking here, so not sure how i’m a major player in a large scale denomination? this, i think, is a major over-estimation of my influence over anything! i think you would find that my influence over a great many things is breath-takingly small… :-)
but, more importantly, i think that your background has resulted in you having an unbalanced view (in my opinion) of this whole “results” thing… i personally believe that God is very results oriented, acts with great purpose in the world, and calls us to do the same with our lives. the whole of matthew’s gospel, for example, is replete with stories, parables and comments about fruitfulness, with a clear admonition not to be unfruitful. what is that, if not “results-oriented”?!
now, to be sure, the kinds of results we may be seeking might be quite different to the results sought by a business CEO, but my point is that results are not evil, and the process of working thoughtfully and effectively towards whatever results you’re meant to be getting is not evil. (and i also think, and have said this, that i think many CEOs would probably be surprised that their whole role would be summarized by something like this, so i only use it as an example because you raised it.)
i don’t particularly see myself as in any camp on this, to be frank. my original comments were made from a position of just looking at the issues and asking some questions about what it is that seems to get these big debates going about what i see as a common-sense matter of leadership and leading, just within different spheres. it does seem to me that *you* are very definitely in a camp that has a very negative view about certain things, and i think that this drives the way you think and communicate about this stuff. i don’t say this in anything but love, mate. you have very specific views about leadership that derive from your own experience (which i suppose is our common problem), which has certainly not been mine. you state that in these discussions, as you did above, and i do actually understand where you are coming from (maybe better than you think), i just think you go too far in rejecting some things because of that.
i have experienced a wide variety of leadership and authority structures in my life, and some i have despised and some i have valued, and some i have just thought were pathetic. but, at the end of it all, i still value leadership a great deal and i’m doing my best to understand it and exercise it in my life as I follow God’s calling for me.
anyways, we’re off the path here. my comments were centred around the fact that i think the discussion happening over at hamo’s takes a jaundiced and perjorative of what a CEO is and does, and i think that’s a mistake which reinforces poor stereotypes. i stand by that. i’m not dismissing anyone’s view other than saying i think the starting point is wrong, which creates a whole bunch of discussion which is not that helpful (to me anyway). and i don’t any of this because i am a CEO, see myself as a church version of a CEO, or even desire to create that somehow.
so, no camping for me… :-)
and, of course, perhaps everyone else understands exactly what you mean by “CEO” (regardless of what that might mean in reality – sounds like a chunk of “Alice in Wonderland”?!), in which case “CEO” has became a new tag which you can use freely use in your discussions as you like… :-) it could just be that i’m being a little pedantic in questioning the redefinition…
Mark,
Firstly, being the Senior Pastor of one of the biggest Churches of Christ in WA, the State Director of the CofC theological institution of ACOM, and (last time i checked) on the board for Churches of Christ in WA, it seems quite bizarre that you would understate not only your personal influence in your church’s direction – its vision, mission, core values etc, but also the part you can play in denominational/inter-denominational discussions about ecclesiological theories and praxis. But maybe you don’t ever discuss this sort of stuff in your line of work – that truly suprises me, seeing as though you hold such strong views on them.
Secondly, I’m still not sure where you think all the heat is coming from? everything seems quite amicable from over here :-)
Thirdly, you say, “i personally believe that God is very results oriented, acts with great purpose in the world, and calls us to do the same with our lives. the whole of matthew’s gospel, for example, is replete with stories, parables and comments about fruitfulness, with a clear admonition not to be unfruitful. what is that, if not “results-oriented”?!”
The point being bantered around is whether or not a deliberate focus on seeking to produce these results – repeatedly week in and week out, within certain time frames, without any allowance for seasonal “droughts” or winter periods of “death”, has a habit of reproducing an unbalanced approach and understanding of leadership – which we have described as a CEO-type of church leadership (maybe wrongly, and that point is taken).
This is not a theory, this is not a negative opinion – this is simply the often-repeated story of many of our previously paid, pastoral colleagues throughout our denomination and others. To possibly suggest that anyone not currently supportive of certain styles of church leadership is somehow unable to offer any truths into a discussion on leadership, because they are simply hurt, bitter or simply unbalanced, is a little arrogant in my opinion (in love ;-) )
You may not have had this experience, but many others have – and to invalidate the truths they have discovered whilst stumbling around in the mud outside of the walls of their old churches is to invalidate their journey altogether.
results-oriented leadership, in my experience (and many others), runs the risk of reducing people to useable and exploitable resources, and the process of spiritual discipleship to a mechanical, superficial, obstacle course – all with the best intentions of course (been there, done that ;-) ).
Once again – we shall agree to disagree. Leadership is a valid and necessary part of all communities – whether it be heirarchical or horizontal, paid or unpaid, well, that’s where things start to get interesting ;-)
peace. matt (no heat here big fella ;-) )
matt…
i’m glad we’re good, and i mean that…
i think “big” and “large” are all relative, and i don’t think we’re very big at all. we have a few hundred people associated with our church, and a direct reach in our community into the lives of a few thousand, but in the context of a community of nearly 100,000 people, that’s pretty piddly. we may be doing better than some, but i think we have a long way to go before we can get all thrilled about how we’re going. but, God has been good to us and blessed our efforts to share the gospel and make disciples, so we remain encouraged in our work for him.
to be honest, we don’t actually talk about leadership models in the church at warnbro… we just sort of do it in our own way, which is generally pretty relational. maybe we should be talking about that sort of stuff, but it doesn’t really come up. maybe they’re talking about it but not with me?! :-)
and, you should know that i am not nor have i ever been on the board of churches of christ in wa. i have not harboured any ambition in that direction, and the Lord in his great wisdom has kept me from such lofty heights… :-) (i’m sure for my own good and the good of others…)
Crikey, I was doing my regular check on lowercase, as has been my habit for quite a while now, and was amazed to see the level of discussion over what seems to be such a simple subject.
As a man who spent 30 years in secular work and was exposed to many style of management, and now spend my days in service to our Lord, I’ll add some of my thoughts.
In industry we have seen a major shift from dictorial heavy handed styles of management to “professional” methods of managing, onto learning the difference between a manager and a leader, and the pros and cons of both.
Churches have over years both refused and grabbed hold of secular styles, depending on the viewpoint of those church leaders, and obviously as supported by previous comments, many people view things from their personal perspective.
From my humble point of view, but fairly extensive experinece, here is my understanding.
1. Everybody has the basic need to be valued and cared for.
2. We all respond better to someone who we percieve to satisfy that need.
3. We all look up to people who we view as true leaders.
4. We all work better for someone that we respect.
5. True leadership is when we take people on a journey of development in all areas of their lives. A journey where they understand where they are going and things they need to do to get there. True leaders attract, followers, disciples or whichever similar meaning term you wish to use, who are led becuase they want to follow, not because of power or authority or title. The best leaders are mentors who pour themselves into the people they are mentoring and positive growth is the fruit.
Yes there may be a role for a CEO in a church, but let us not get that confused with the Leader of the church. A CEO is exactly as it says, the Chief OPERATING Officer, there is no mention of LEADER in that title and his primary purposes are the operations under his responsibility. Some CEOs may some have leadership qualities, some Leaders may have some CEO qualities, but just as their are many parts of the body I see these as two different roles, and the main reason for this is that of perception and viewpoint. It is the way that people view and perceive us that will effect the way they respond. If they see us as what they percieve a CEO to look like, then that is the way they will believe us to be. If they view and perceive us to be Leaders, then they will follow, and then we can take them on the journey of fulfilling their potential in Christ.
I respond to Jesus. He is the greatest Leader that I have been introduced to, and I want people to see Jesus through the way I speak and act. That will only if they see me as a Leader of people rather than a CEO.
As I said it may be a case of perceptions, but to the holder of a perception, it is real, just as our perceptions on this topic are real to us.
We may all need to agree to disagree, but let’s get on with the God stuff and making people feel loved and valued.