Conflicts often occur because leaders do not understand or value other styles of leadership.
Many tests—Personality Profile, DISC, Myers-Briggs, MMPI, 16 PF —help define leadership styles. Most tests reveal four basic leadership styles. Though no one style perfectly describes anyone, the groupings are helpful. Most leaders are a combination of these four styles:
Style 1: Pioneer
They enjoy beginning new works. They are “idea” people, catalysts and visionaries. They have a passion for pioneering and innovating. Often, they are very task-oriented people.
Pioneers are often idealists, often jack-of-all-trades generalists. They are good at starting the new, ministries, churches and mission projects. Founders or pastors of larger churches are often creators.
They get bored when a project or vision nears completion. They become impatient if they stay with anything too long. Sometimes they resist structure and organization.
Style 2: Developer
They find fulfillment in taking good ideas and making them work on a larger scale. They see the need for effective infrastructure and systems. They are better working with something already in existence.
They improve ideas and are usually patient enough to see these ideas reach fruition.
They often specialize in particular organizational skills. They can be effective existing-church pastors or associate pastors in a specialist area. Developers often like to follow or team up with pioneers.
Style 3: Maximizer
They bring ministry to a peak performance level for any group of people. They are pragmatists, but still can “dream the dream” with the visionaries.
They grow existing ministries into effective places for service. They often bring together the visionaries and team players and get the most out of both styles.
They have learned the art of delegating. They seek to balance creativity and management. They excel in running programs. They can be both long-term or leaders at peak times in the effectiveness of an organization.
Style 4: Redeveloper
They are part creator and part maximizer. They love to recreate and breathe new life into situations that were once seen as hopeless.
On the surface they appear to be warm “people” persons, but underneath they can be ruthlessly pragmatic. They can make the tough decisions needed to turn an organization around. They help ministries rediscover purpose and vision and inspire them to change. They are often called to be a re-planter of a church, an interim minister, church renewal specialist or denominational leader. It is helpful to match leadership style to the needs of the organization and its life cycle.
Certain styles are most effective at specific points in the life of an organization or church.
- Birth Period - Pioneer
- Growth Period - Developer
- Peak Period -Developer to Maximizer
- Plateau Period - Maximizer to Redeveloper
- Decline - Redeveloper-Pioneer
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This seems like a pretty straightforward topic but there is much more to it if we look a little further and compare this to the Bible.
ReplyDeleteMany books and articles have been written researching the various types of leadership and generally you will always find the same four or five types, similar to the ones outlined here, even if they have different names at time.
It's interesting that the modern organizational types of leadership mirror and stem from the types of calling put forth in Ephesians 4. As a side note though, Ephesians 4 assigns these callings to the entire Church, not just leadership. All of these are in everyone of us, even if they are sometimes latent. Leadership then is more of a function within a function.
It is however interesting how these mirror each other and I believe as a Church and Mission Organization we can learn something from this.
Ephesians 4 outlines the Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers which are similar to the typical leadership styles found in business.
Businesses realize that they need all five of these types working together to maximize their potential and achieve their goal. This is what they call synergy and they purposely look to building a team that is diverse in these different styles. As an organization and as a Church we must build our leadership team and organizational structure around the same idea. At least all five parts have to be together to create a whole and be successful. God outlined and called these five callings for a purpose and it is evident that they were there during the rapid early growth of the Church. This is something we can learn from.