LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWERSHIP (3)

In any grouping of people, parish congregations included, there needs to be good leaders and good followers. Absent one or the other or both, that group of people will slowly and surely disintegrate, probably into chaos before finally disintegrating altogether. That is simply the nature of the beast. There are times when each of needs to be lead and times when each of must follow because no one of us goes it alone in this life, not for long.

Anthony B. Robinson in an article in The Christian Century (01-12-12) notes that there are five habits that congregations need to develop in order to be healthy. First of all, the members need to recognize that truth that leadership is necessary, is important and is difficult especially given the diversity of people who make up most congregations. Leadership is work and always a work in progress.

Secondly, while each one of us joins a congregation because of own particular needs and wants, it is vital to both realize and accept the fact that the mission and the ministry of the whole body is not directed solely to us, to the individual. Even more, it is not directed solely to the wants and needs of the gathered community even though collectively the primary purpose for joining a church is to have personal needs met.

If a congregation turns in on itself and does not look outside, it will fail to fulfill its baptismal mission to seek and serve and evangelize those who are not members. A good leader helps keep the congregation, the followers, on track so that they never lose sight of their real mission, something that is easy for followers to do especially when personal needs begin to consume or very being.

In order for a leader to be able to keep the followers on track, that leader must cultivate a good relationship with the people who have called him or her to be in such a position. Not only that, insists Robinson, the leader must build up the trust that is needed in order for the leader to lead and the follower to follow. If we cannot trust our leader to show us the right way, then we will soon look for someone whom we can trust.

The truth is, when we call someone to lead us, we automatically want to assume that that person is trustworthy; otherwise we would not have made the call. But, humanly speaking, in the beginning we tend to keep a wary eye on the leader. We have all been burned once or twice over the years by someone who betrayed the trust we had placed in him or her. The pain remains with us today.

Trust is vital. But it is also a two-way street. In order for a leader to lead and lead well, those who follower must themselves be trustworthy. We, too, when we have been in position of leadership have been burned by those whom we expected to do their part and who even said that they would, who, in fact, did not and we were left to pick up the pieces and, worse, shoulder the blame. That pain, too, remains with us today.

Trust is easy to come by and easy to lose but it is vital for leaders to lead and followers to follow.