Today I want to share with you something that has been titled: Essential Competences of System Leaders, and we want to look at Jesus as a case study. Last week on Leaderview, we examined Systems Leadership for Sustainable Organizational Growth and one of the many things we said was that Sustainable organizational Growth rests upon three things: The Leader, The Team and the Organizational Structure. But today we want to focus more on the System Leader using the leadership of Jesus as a case study. We want to see how you can become a system leader gleaning from the life of Jesus Himself.
Listen to Podcast: Essential Competences of System Leaders
Now, you would agree with me that the world has never at any time been in want of leaders. There are leaders everywhere in the world. As a matter of fact, there are perhaps many leaders today as there are problems confronting different segments of our world. From politics and governance, to nation building and to solving the myriad of problems confronting society, there have always been one leader or the other responsible for shouldering certain responsibilities. So, the challenge is not lack of leaders but rather, the lack of systems leaders. You would also agree with me that in this modern era, the profound changes needed to fast-track progress against society’s most recurrent problems require a unique type of leader; the system leader.
Jesus: A System Leader
The New Testament book documents the life and times of Jesus Christ. You will agree with me that Jesus was not around for a very long time, He lived just thirty-three and half years and three and half of those years was dedicated to His assignment. Now, what makes Jesus’ leadership model worth examining is the fact that Christianity has been around for more than 2000 years and it has over 2 billion people in the world today that are associated with it. But Jesus didn’t start with 2 billion people, He only came, selected twelve men from various backgrounds and He taught them. Now, Jesus’ teachings served as guiding principles to His disciples and even the modern-day leaders in the church.
Now, there are two essential competences that system leaders develop in order to foster collective leadership.
THE FIRST IS THE ABILITY TO SEE THE LARGER SYSTEM. In the case of Jesus Christ, the entire world represents the system. 1 John 2:2 says “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” One of the things that made the ministry of Jesus still standing till today is in the fact that He shared it with His twelve disciples. To really be effective in systems leadership, the system leader must be able to help people see the larger system in order to build a shared understanding of complex problems. This understanding would foster collaboration to be able to jointly proffer solutions together as a group and to work together for the wellbeing of the whole system rather than fixing it differently.
“The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2 until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, 3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. 4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:1-8
THE SECOND IS DEVELOPING AN ATMOSPHERE OF NURTURING REFLECTION AND MORE GENERATIVE CONVERSATIONS. A system leader must give room to generative and collaborative conversations. Now, we saw Jesus do this often with His disciples in the New Testament. Jesus never disregard and disrupt any of His conversations with His disciples. In Matthew 16:13-17, one of those conversations was documented.
“When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” 14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”
The advantages of this kind of conversations are that it provides a doorway for building trust where lack of trust had been the order of the day and it also fosters collective ingenuity.
I believe you have learnt something!
[Centre for New Dimension Leadership]
