29 Jul 2010
The Fifth Frame
The point of leadership
Yesterday I was sharing about the book “Reframing Organisations” and how the authors propose that an effective leader needs to be able to see the world through all four frames.
Today I want to propose a fifth, and in my view, more important frame: Faith.
Each time Jesus told the disciples off for not having enough faith, what he was talking about was the lense or frame they were looking at the world through.
Faith is seeing the world from God’s perspective or frame, and then acting on it.
The problem with the other four frames is that it still comes back to the leader and his or her perception of reality.
Faith, however, is about trusting a different perception, and in fact trusting a different leader.
There is a danger we have when we start talking about leadership. That danger is that we elevate the place of the leader to a point where we are following the wrong person.
I have been challenged by 1 Corinthians 1:17
God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.
While the book Re-Framing the Organisation is very helpful in understanding the human frameworks for leadership, Paul in this passage points to the real job of a leader: Pointing people to Jesus Christ.
The moment the leader becomes more important than Jesus its time to get a new leader.
So what qualifications should we be looking for in our leaders? Its actually fairly simple:
People who through their words and lives will inspire and challenge us to follow Jesus.
Anything else is just detail.
Yes, it’s simple but profound; so easy to be busy with the other 4 frames. But when this is in focus the others may be found to fail in hurdling the big barriers. All are important but this modifies them all and gives insight otherwise missing.
Anne Nanscawen
July 30th, 2010 at 12:04 ampermalink