by Rev. Joan Van Becelaere
Ohio-Meadville District Executive
Last week, I did something that I had been longing to do for some time. I saved my pennies (well…dimes and dollars) and spent a week at the Cape Cod Institute attending a class offered by Margaret Wheatley and Angela Blanchard, called “Leaders For The Storm: Wisdom Old and New for Leading in Crisis and Chaos.”
The presenters started off with a basic assertion that we live I n an age of anxiety, uncertainty, disillusionment and exhaustion. As well as an age of exploration, generosity and clarity. Kind of like the start to Dicken’s “Tale of Two Cities” – “ It was the worst of times. It was the best of times….”
But I have to admit – they struck a chord. It IS anxious and chaotic and exploratory and generous out there. There is a lot of change going on …constantly. And all of this stuff will and is impacting each and every one of us.
And then they said something that directly reflected the concerns I hear from congregational leaders every day — leadership has never been as difficult and perplexing as it is today.
The systems that created our modern state of crises, they said, cannot resolve the problems. New systems must be created to find our way to real workable solutions. Leaders are called upon to play two roles–hospice workers to the failed systems (to keep what is necessary still running) while trying to act as midwives to the birth of new ones (that will bring real solutions.).
Change is inevitable and the pace is picking up. Of course, this situation results in social and psychological chaos. This isn’t to be feared since ”you can’t be creative if you refuse to be confused.” You can’t find new solutions if you refuse to jump in and face the situation in all of its messiness and admit that you don’t know all of the answers. But it does call for changing some of our key beliefs about how the world works and our assumptions about how to lead and organize.
Our world currently operates with some basic assumptions that serve to hinder us in our attempts to deal with the world today.
1. Leaders have to maintain control and produce stability in the face of uncertainty. We don’t need creativity or experimentation. There is no room for the confusion or failure that comes with experiments.
2. That’s the way things are and we can’t change them. Disillusionment is the way of the world.
3. Only a select, few, gifted folk can be leaders. There aren’t enough leaders to go around.
4. We live in the midst of scarcity. There are not enough time, talent, ideas or resources to deal with our problems.
5. Other humans are inadequate and not be trusted. We have to find ways to control them from messing things up even more.
Counter to this rather dismal set of assumptions, we are called upon to foster new beliefs that will help us address our new world of creative chaos. Let me try to summarize these briefly albeit inadequately.
1. Chaos is the necessary route to creativity and newness. Experimentation is a blessing and failure is how we learn to succeed the next time. We have to let go of our futile and destructive search for certainty if we want to see new possibilities. We have to stop thinking that we know all of the answers if we are going to discover the new approaches that will be truly effective.
2. Every situation is workable. Maybe not immediately. Maybe not in the ways first expected. Life will always give you feedback that you can learn from. Whatever you do, you get a response. The worlds is always sending you messages. But we ignore this reality. We focus on the action to much we forget that feedback comes to us. We need to listen then ask …did the action work? Is the response what you expected? What do we learn from the feedback?
3. Leaders are made (or can be taught) not born. Most leaders want to believe the leadership is a special quality only available to them — and a few of their friends. But there is a better definition of leadership — a leader is anyone who is willing to help, anyone who sees something that needs to be changed and steps forward to take on the challenge. Most of us can be leaders on behalf of something we care about. The true role of a leader today is to set the stage so other leaders can emerge.
4. We have what we need. This is where paying attention to the diversity around us helps us see more options. After all, no one person can see the world in all of its fullness. There are untapped, unrealized resources in people and cultures and traditions right in front of us. Leaders help others discover their own potential and creativity and skills and calling to lead. One very powerful example – we label folk as ‘poor’ and assume they are entirely helpless, not recognizing or trying to draw on the skills and creativity and knowledge they have that can be used to address their situation.
5. The human spirit can not be extinguished. We have to learn to trust one another and create new connections across all of our former boundaries. We have learn to act from our own sense of generosity, not fear. Generosity is a matter of the human heart operating in the world without fear.
I m just now beginning to unpack what these assumptions might mean for my ministry and work with congregations and the Ohio-Meadville district. It will be an exciting year.
Margaret Wheatley has a new book out that was written for these times: “Perseverance.” I really recommend it.
And I WILL get a t-shirt that says: “You can’t be creative if you refuse to be confused.”
