By Jon Hietbrink
We can’t lead movements the same way we lead organizations.
Many organizations run like machines–they thrive on alignment, order, discipline, and consistency, but movements are like organisms–they feed on change, complexity, empowerment, and freedom. Mechanical organizations can be directed by insightful strategic planning, consistent management and disciplined execution, but it’s debatable whether organic movements can be led at all–like a swelling ocean wave, movements are something we catch, not something we create. So the question becomes, “How do we lead in such a way that we’ll be ready to catch the wave when it comes?”
Most of the ministries we lead are some combination of both organization and movement–to be sure, we need the skills and expertise of modern organizational management (at least if we want to get our paychecks on time!), but we also yearn to function more like the organic metaphors of the Kingdom we encounter in the scriptures– bodies bound together by love, families that become temples , yeast working through a loaf of dough.
One of my favorite books on systems leadership is entitled Surfing the Edge of Chaos (Three Rivers Press, 2000), and in my experience, embracing a more “movemental” style feels a lot like the title suggests– trying to find that dynamic and life-giving (but often chaotic and uncertain) “edge” of innovation, creativity, and movement. If we want the ministries we lead to function more like movements, this is the kind of sweet spot we must occupy.
How Do You Surf The Edge of Chaos?
If I’m honest, too often I’ve used the idea of “organic leadership” to disguise a kind of spiritual laziness on my part, and I cringe at the inference that anything planned or organized is somehow less influenced by the Spirit (last I checked, spontaneity doesn’t exactly feature in Paul’s description of what the Spirit produces in Galatians 5). That said, I’m increasingly aware of our need as leaders to become experts at calibrating the edge of chaos–we’ll never catch a movement by hanging back in consistently safe places devoid of risk and adventure, but we’ll also never see exponential growth if we go boldly careening over the edge of chaos and into the abyss of confusion and disorder. How then do we navigate this tension? How do we surf the edge of chaos?
- As a leader who actually tends toward order and structure, it’s been important for me to embrace the chaos as appropriate and good. If we want movement, it won’t be easy, clean, or predictable, and part of the journey for us as leaders is settling this in our souls–our tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty has to increase.
- It’s critical that we resource the risk that we’re asking our folks to take. Almost nothing is more aggravating than a leader challenging her folks to embrace a significant change but then giving them nothing new by way of resources (i.e., training, funds, or people) to get there. When we invite those we lead to engage a new risk, we must think concretely about how we’re going to resource them to accomplish what we’re asking them to do.
- We must foster environments of interdependence where folks are not just allowed, but encouraged to seek help from any and every source. A mentor of mine used to tell me that the job of a leader is to build “webs, not wheels”– an ever-expanding web of interconnected, interdependent parts, not a wheel where all the spokes connect back to me at the center.
- We serve our folks by being willing to demonstrate ruthless focus. A temptation for me as a young apostolic leader is to jump at everything that looks like an opportunity, but part of our task is to demonstrate real precision of mind and heart in defining what we’re trying to do (and what we’re not). Ministries that try to do everything often end up doing nothing, so we must exercise the courage necessary to get clarity on what God has invited us to own.
For the last couple years, I’ve been privileged to lead an incredible team of young leaders, and as we’ve sought together to surf the wave of God’s movement on the campuses of the Central US, it’s been both inspiring and at times disorienting. As I’ve prayed for our team this summer, I’ve been struck anew by the exasperating beauty of living (and leading) in such a way that banks on the movement and provision of God– there’s simply nothing like following the call of God beyond the limits of our potency and watching him provide in almost “magical” ways for the work he has started. May we be leaders willing to surf the edge of chaos to catch the wave of God’s movement in our day!
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What about you? What’s a helpful idea you’ve used to “dampen” and/or “amplify” intensity so you stay on, but not over the edge of chaos?
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