Community Leadership

by Ellen Stephen, OSH

When leadership becomes oppressive it is often overthrown and replaced by no leadership at all. No leadership is not the best alternative to oppressive leadership-it is a poor idea to replace tyranny with anarchy.

So what is good leadership? Jesus speaks about the Good Shepherd, but that analogy is not immediately helpful today. Who wants to be a sheep-even the sheep of a caring pastor? It is more helpful to remember that Jesus called his disciples his friends. Good leadership generally calls for mutual respect and shared responsibility. We might call it "community leadership."

The transition from hierarchical to communal leadership is not always smooth, and discerning when to hand over responsibility is crucial. As Thomas Gordon wrote in a chapter on group-centered leadership and administration in Carl Rogers's Client-Centered Therapy: "Whenever a person is perceived as a leader, the process of transferring his leadership to the group cannot be accomplished by fiat. This is to say that he can best transfer the leadership by remaining as the leader, until he can effectively create the conditions required for members to learn to assume the leadership."

Responsible handing over of governance is very different from abdication. King Lear is a prime example of why abdication doesn't work. Regan, one of his wicked but shrewd daughters, said of Lear: " . . . he hath ever but slenderly known himself." If we have not done the work of knowing ourselves, we will not be skillful in discerning authentic leadership qualities in others. Before a leader resigns, she or he should have done everything possible to ensure that others are designated and qualified to lead.

There are two organizations in which I have had the great privilege of experiencing community leadership. One is my own community, the Order of St. Helena, and the other is the Foundation for Community Encouragement.

The Order of St. Helena is a religious community for women in the Anglican Communion that witnesses to a contemporary version of traditional monasticism. Four years ago our Chapter passed legislation committing us to an experimental four-Sister Leadership Council elected to govern the Order rather than one Superior. I serve as a member of that council.

The Foundation for Community Encouragement was founded by eleven people in response to a need for community as perceived by one of the founding members, M. Scott Peck, M.D., author of The Road Less Traveled and The Different Drum. I have been a facilitator for this organization since its beginning, and was a member of its Board of Directors for nine years.

In these two groups, quite different and yet in some ways surprisingly similar, I have learned much about what is beneficial in community leadership. I have also learned some of its challenges.

Good governance is a matter of responsibility, not of privilege. Distributed responsibilities help diffuse the mystique of a single person in charge. Projections, both positive and negative, which human beings are prone to place on high-profile leaders, are minimized.

The trouble with projections-especially positive ones-is that the person who receives them begins to believe and identify with them: to see herself or himself as better, more powerful, more glorified than she or he really is. Such unreality is at best self-deceit. "Will success spoil Rock Hunter?" It is only too likely. As Lord Acton wrote to Bishop Creighton, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

There are, no doubt, benevolent monarchs, CEOs, abbesses, and five-star generals, but persons in such roles need to pay constant attention to their own actuality-a disposition that may be called humility. A person who seeks status or power as self-validation is not a person for community leadership. In the Foundation for Community Encouragement we speak about "leading from emptiness," which may be described in brief as setting aside one's own biases and agenda for the sake of the other.

Leadership qualities are gifts-perhaps rarer, but not better, than other gifts. A gift for leadership is only one skill among many. To be a leader is not better than to be a teacher or an athlete or a parent or an electrician.

A team working in consensus will have the advantage of a broader perspective, and therefore the capacity to make richer assessments and decisions. I have been in a group where one person was usually quick to propose a plan, invariably a good plan. But when more individuals began to contribute, two things were apparent: first, the ideas generated were more creative, and secondly, there was much more ownership of the final proposal by the larger group. Having contributed to its formation, they accepted its implementation.

Another important attribute of community leadership is that of providing internal checks and balances. The differing perspectives of its members supplement that function exercised by external constituencies.

Delegation is a key requisite of leadership. With a community or council of leaders, there is more wisdom on the exact nature of the task and the capabilities of the available personnel.

However, even a community of leaders will not escape some accusations of elitism, power, and privilege. Information is often seen as a major source of power: who knows what, and knows it first? Good communication is crucial in any organization, and it becomes more difficult when there are several leaders.

First, there is the necessity of ensuring that information flows efficiently within the leadership body itself. Inevitably there comes a time when one member misses a meeting or memo or is not involved in a phone call. Significant good will is needed, or the trust of the group erodes and the efficiency of its work suffers.

here must be full and timely communication from the leadership to the constituency, and the pattern of communication is another challenge. In my religious order we have broad areas of responsibility assigned to the four members of our Leadership Council. Some information that once would unhesitatingly have been communicated to the Superior is now prone to "fall through the cracks." Confidentiality also becomes more complex when, in order to make well-informed and just decisions, four people instead of one need to receive privileged information.

And finally there is the matter of scheduling adequate meeting times, which sometimes seems a burden on one's calendar.

In my experience the benefits of community leadership far outweigh the difficulties. I sometimes fantasize about this phrase in the first chapter of Genesis: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness . . . " The New Revised Standard Version notes: "The plural us, our probably refers to the divine beings who compose God's heavenly court." However, I like to imagine that God's own Self creates, sustains, and empowers the universe in and through community.

Ellen Stephen, a member of the Anglican Order of St. Helena, is also a spiritual director, poet, and co-author of Vessel of Peace (reviewed in this issue).