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I was reading a very good book called Leadership Jazz recently. It is by an author named Max Dupree who was CEO of a very large, publicly traded company for years. His book is like scripture — not that it’s inspired or divine, but written like scripture — at a conceptual level, normally, with a lot of quotable statements. It is the sort of book where five people could read the same passage, and each come away with personalized meaning — and it could all be different. He leaves space in the margin so you can write comments like you do in scripture. Again, he does not claim is book is so wise or inspired that it is scripture, and neither to do I, but it has a lot in common with it in that it is a book that would apply now, 200 years ago, or 200 years in the future. One comment he makes is that adults have the right to be critical of their leaders — to evaluate their behavior and form their own impressions about the person is worth following.
This is contrary to our church’s stance, which is that we should support our leaders no matter what skills, deficits, or abilities they bring to the table.
What do you think of Max Dupree’s assertion that we have a right to be critical and evaluative contrasted to the church’s stance on largely unconditional support of any leader who happens to be in place at a given time?
Quote:One comment he makes is that adults have the right to be critical of their leaders — to evaluate their behavior and form their own impressions about the person is worth following.
This is contrary to our church’s stance, which is that we should support our leaders no matter what skills, deficits, or abilities they bring to the table.
I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive – but there is a need for more charity when dealing with volunteer leaders (many of whom would rather not be in their particular leadership position) than when dealing with career or political leaders.
It depends on your definition of support. I’ll post a few that I think fit the bill from various perspectives: bear all or part of the weight of; hold up
- give assistance to, esp. financially; enable to function or act
- give approval, comfort, or encouragement to
- be actively interested in and concerned for the success of (a particular sports team)
- be capable of fulfilling (a role) adequately
Sustain adds:
uphold, affirm, or confirm the justice or validity of
- strengthen or support physically or mentally
When it comes to church I’ve limited my definition of sustain/support to: give assistance and strengthen. My limited definition may even require me to be critical from time to time so I can see in what areas I can best assist and strengthen. I don’t mean point out flaws but rather attempt to assess how I can best help out – I know these guys get dumped on and if I were in their shoes I know I’d appreciate it if others were out there trying to lighten my load.
Often when I hear sustain/support in church the definition is limited to “confirm the justice or validity of” and sometimes it’s left at that. That implies many things: all callings come from the Lord, don’t speak evil of the Lord’s anointed, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants it is the same, etc.
I’ve had a calling where there were other members “under” me and there was one person in particular that was 110% in the do what leaders say column. They would often advertize this to me because I was in a leadership position “over” them. I can tell you that I always felt uneasy when they made those comments. I didn’t want to let that person down or to make any stray requests of them, I always felt under the gun.
Ray brings up a good point. I’m one of those that does not want to be in a leadership position. I can see how open criticism doesn’t really work in that volunteer model. For one there’s the risk you run: Don’t like how I’m doing something!??!?! Ok, have at it, I’m done.
:wave: If criticism comes I can see a few paths that someone could go down: 1) The leader digs in their heels and you have all kinds of contention. 2) The leader’s self confidence/self esteem is destroyed. 3) The leader constructively applies the criticism and becomes better.
SilentDawning wrote:One comment he makes is that adults have the right to be critical of their leaders — to evaluate their behavior and form their own impressions about the person is worth following.
I think on some levels church members do this, at least the latter portion of the quote. I don’t think anyone will go so far as to openly find fault in leadership but I think many members have their favorite prophet(s)/apostle(s). So criticism of leadership in that context would be limited to great, awesome, stupendous, and excellent (all positive affirmations).
Besides… aside from the occasional BKP comment and stray denouncements of “all you need is love”
:angel: the general conference messages are usually fairly innocuous and will do little if anything to provide people with an idea or concept that can be criticized. Atonement? Get closer to God? I’m down. Chocolate being added to the WoW? Whoa now, what was that? Hmmm… what prompted the brethren to say that? Think. Think. Think.
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