Leadership in the Church

[Anonymous]

The flip side of naming and shaming could maybe be called segregating and stroking. Awhile ago a visiting authority at our Saturday night session of stake conference talked about how the people there that night were the more faithful ones in the stake. He said it in a very pointed way, not to be misunderstood, I think. I had a hard time caring what he said after that.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Thoreau, I don’t think that was mackay11’s point. I think it was just that many of the leaders have a professional, measurement-matrix-driven background, so it’s natural for them to operate in that mode when dealing with any organizational responsibility.

I might be wrong about that, but it’s how I read the comment.

Thanks Ray, I went away on a week’s vacation so missed the reply from Thoreau.

That was exactly my point. These are high-level professionals, often in leadership of multi-million dollar businesses. They get called to run a multi-billion dollar organisation.

Given God calls a man, who brings himself to the calling, including his experiences. It’s only natural that some business management practices will filter down the ‘ranks’ into processes and initiatives.

[Anonymous]

Roadrunner wrote:

mackay11 wrote:

One thing that I’ve started to realise is that the call of a General Authority is not purely based on finding the most spiritually minded people, but also the most successful and willing to serve.

^ yes, agree 100%.

To me the Q12 and FP are administrator-prophets. We all probably have a different opinion about what percentage of each role they play on a daily basis. Also in my experience the best bishops are effective administrators and spirituality plays an important secondary position, and doctrinal knowledge is almost never used. The best bishops (again in my limited experience) readily adopt the “council method” and rarely make sweeping statements and rarely simply dictate local policy.

A large, international organization like the LDS church requires the expertise of professional administrators with deep knowledge of organizational behavior, finances, and marketing. A skeptic might say this is evidence the church isn’t true. A believe might say a prophet can be both an administrator and a prophet.

I like this roadrunner.

Could it even follow that it’s reasonable that their ‘stipends’ are reflective of the ‘board of directors’ role they fulfil? Hmmm…

[Anonymous]

Ann wrote:

The flip side of naming and shaming could maybe be called segregating and stroking. Awhile ago a visiting authority at our Saturday night session of stake conference talked about how the people there that night were the more faithful ones in the stake. He said it in a very pointed way, not to be misunderstood, I think.

Yes Ann! Thank you for pointing that out.

I cannot see the example of attendance reporting as positive leadership, even if this is coming from the business executive professional backgrounds of some of these leaders. They need to work to lose the attitude that members exist to be considered as staff. The church may be a multi million dollar corporation. However, I do not believe it is a business and we all need to remember we are fellow believers in Christ, all together, no respecters of persons but responsible for being respectful and loving to each other. The higher the hierarchy of leadership, I hope for the better example of respect and love.

[Author]

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