Problems with leadership pathways

One of the themes in the Old Testament prophets is that the leaders of Israel (Prophets, priests and kings) have failed.

I thought, ‘These are only the poor;
    they are foolish,
for they do not know the way of the Lord,
    the requirements of their God.
⁵ So I will go to the leaders
    and speak to them;
surely they know the way of the Lord,
    the requirements of their God.’
But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke
    and torn off the bonds. Jeremiah 5:4-5

The leaders fail to lead the people into justice and worshipping God, and the people like it that way, and the failure of the leader is part of why the people fail, but the people deserve the leaders they have. The prophets highlight the failed leadership to then point forward to perfect leadership, a coming King.

Reading Jeremiah more slowly has made his society feel jarringly contemporary. In the UK and USA, political leadership over the past decade has been… less than stellar. Jeremiah will give the most fundamental problem, which Russian writer Solzhenitsyn summed up as “Men have forgotten God”. I’ll be focusing on that in sermons. But for this blog I’ll suggest two other problems with leadership pathways in modern society.

1) Entering the leadership pathway requires connections or resources. The problem here is that entering leadership pathways seems to exclude many potentially talented people. This is particularly obvious in a field like acting. There are far more moderately talented young actors than there are roles for them to be seen and become a star. And the minority who are chosen once will gain experience and exposure that increases their chances of being chosen again. The “breakthrough” role is vital. And most who break through turn out to have relatives in the film industry. The young people who benefit are often fairly talented and hard working. If you are lazy and incompetent, no amount of family backing will turn you into a film star. But the key difference between those who “breakthrough” and those who don’t tends to be connections not raw talent and effort.

This type of block to entry is particularly common in arts and media. But it also affects politics, entrepreneurship and academia. Sometimes it is less the need for nepotism and more the backstop of a wealthy family if you try something for five years and it fails, or you need to do several unpaid internships and fund more study to break into a field. But the result is that getting onto the leadership pathway, and especially cultural leadership, seems to depend more on family background than ability or work ethic.

This may also affect the Christian leadership world. At a basic level, if it is assumed people who end up in paid Christian ministry will do several years of unpaid internships to enter the leadership pathway, that will favour young people with families who are in the upper half of society. Likewise, raising funds for Bible College is probably easier for those from more prosperous backgrounds (and this is one of the advantage the CofE system has in paying for ordinands to study).

More subtly, the network of connections a young person has probably does affect the opportunities and support they have to enter the leadership pathway and take early steps along it. Publishing a book with an academic parent, or being helped to get a good mentor, or a post in a well connected church, will all be ways that progressing to Christian leadership roles is easier for some than for others.

Beyond being very cautious about letting children of church staff join the staff or leadership in the same church, I’m not sure I have many answers to these problems. I didn’t have any family connections to help my journey into paid ministry, though my parents were very supportive. Instead, I have found God opening doors and many people being kind to a slightly clueless young man as he tried to serve God and figure out next steps.

2) The process for gaining leadership roles seems not to be producing competent leadership skills. This is an even bigger problem. The first problem is a justice issue, but if the process produces competent leaders then it is not devastating. But if the process for gaining leadership roles means the people who become leaders are not competent as leaders, then everyone suffers.

Modern politics in the UK seems afflicted by this. The 24hr online news cycle, the need for photo ops, and other factors, mean we don’t seem to attract so many of the 50+ people who had a good career elsewhere, raised a family and come to politics with lots of real world leadership experience. Instead, the pathways seem to favour people who have done political internships, worked for political charities or unions or similarly political roles, and then enter parliament. The process for getting chosen by the party and then the electorate seems to be failing to produce MPs with the wisdom and skills we need to scrutinise legislation properly and think about the real world implications and trade offs.

In publishing it appears that having built up a social media following is now a requirement for new authors. This favours those who have fame in other fields, or are willing to invest considerable effort into something that is not actually writing a book.

In other fields like professional organisations, it appears that skills with paperwork and committees is the pathway to professional leadership, rather than the skill of directly delivering the service.

While there has always been a tension between the process for achieving leadership and producing the sort of people who will lead well, at the moment it feels to me like our pathways fail to cultivate the wisdom and skills we would want leaders and influencers to have. The Roman republic and 19th century Britain both appeared to have competitive public service routes that while not particularly equitable (the majority of the population could not purchase an armed forces commission to become an officer for example) did ensure that those who rose to prominence had real skills and proven experience in leadership.

There are versions of this problem in the Christian world. It seems to have badly affected the Christian music scene in the US, where musical talent not godliness was the criteria, and the way to make a living (by travelling around lots of churches performing) seemed to be actively harmful to the process of growing and being rooted in the faith. It can afflict church leadership pathways by becoming over academic, over activist, or just focused on delivery of numbers. I’m thankful for a number of books recently published (as well as older ones) encouraging the need for character and personal walk with God as the key requirement for Christian leaders who are to be undershepherds of Jesus, caring for the flock and feeding them God’s word. But cultural blinders can easily be at work here, with something other than godliness and teaching gift becoming the criteria for selecting future leaders, and training that shapes us away from humble shepherds to some other cultural form of leadership.

Highlighting problems with leadership pathways in our nations and churches is easier than fixing them. For our nation, I think my role is like Jeremiah to call people back to the generous creator God, and if many people turn back to God then perhaps a new generation of leaders for the nation will have wisdom for reforming our public life. For the church, I have some responsibility and influence in a few local places. I’m not sure I have answers. But I’m interested in hearing if people spot problems with who gets onto the leadership pathway, and whether the process of the leadership pathway is producing leaders who do not have the character and skills a Christian minister should have.