What does leadership look like? Is a leader simply the person in the room with the loudest voice? The one who dominates the decision-making?
As a child, I was often the one who sorted out the teams for our basketball games in the driveway. In school, I would often organize our group projects. I like being in charge and have always been a natural leader. I’m self-confident (to a fault), don’t mind taking responsibility, and like to make things happen. Sometimes I’ve used that quality for the good, organizing groups, motivating them, and encouraging them, but other times I’ve tried to dominate and control groups in order to get what I want.
Leadership is a tricky concept to get right. If it becomes an excuse to autocratically ignore feedback, make decisions with no consultation, and demand unconditional obedience, then something has gone wrong. A true leader would never behave in such a way.
In order to avoid accusations of being dominating, a lot of people who ought to step into leadership roles are reluctant. Priests don’t exercise authority in their parish and parents are reluctant to discipline and guide their children in their moral development. No one wants to become a toxic presence and stifle the people around them, but taken too far, fear of exercising leadership becomes an abstention from responsibility. Ultimately, God has placed certain people into roles for the good of everyone.
Leaders are good and necessary. Without them, groups lose initiative, decisions don’t get made, and values that need to be preserved can become lost. If you’ve ever been in a meeting that lacked a good leader, you know the frustration of endless talking, digressions, and second-guessing. There’s a clear lack in a family in which the father has declined to practice his hierarchical authority, and I’ve seen parishes founder on lack of priestly leadership.
We cannot be afraid of acknowledging those who God has placed into authority. Children ought to obey their parents, priests are spiritual fathers with real authority, and fathers are responsible for the care of their families. We know that leadership is difficult to get right, but this doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to reject the concept entirely. Instead, we ought to understand what true leadership really is and how it looks when practiced.
A true leader is not domineering and selfish, and is not simply someone who tells everyone else what to do. Further, we don’t owe unconditional obedience to any human person (unconditional obedience is reserved to God alone). Rather, a leader is someone who serves those who are being lead, and whose every decision is for their sake.
This condition of selflessness on the part of good leaders is precisely why they deserve the benefit of the doubt and obedience even when we disagree with their decisions. If all their decisions are made on our behalf, it’s easy to trust them. A good father, for instance, is kind and consistent, never asking of their children anything that goes against their dignity or causes them to sin. He has to make difficult decisions and exercise disciplinary authority, but it’s always for the good of the children. In other words, hierarchy is not an outdated concept. God has given us a hierarchy of authority because leadership is so very important for maintaining our freedom through good order.
Grace flowing down
I was recently reading the early Church theologian known as Dionysius the Areopagite on the concept of divine hierarchy. The way he defines it is extremely helpful.
Hierarchy is not about power. It’s not about who controls who or who demands obedience. Instead, Dionysius thinks about it as a sacred order in which divine grace flows from God down into creation through a chain of intermediaries. Those who are higher on the ladder, such as the angels, receive greater gifts of illumination from God, and they are given responsibility to impart what they’ve been given to those below according to their capacity to receive. The angels take care of us and we take care of the animals. Parents take care of their children, priests their parishioners, and so on. The point isn’t accumulating power. It’s always to become a giver.
This means that leadership is all about the capacity to love and sacrifice. A good leader is particularly adept at lifting up others, enabling those in their care. Everyone is in this life together, participating in the same source of grace, so it would be a mistake to think that leaders are more holy and exalted or more worthy than those who are being led. God loves a child every bit as much as a parent, and all leaders should remain aware that their role is meant to serve God, not to self-aggrandize. Hierarchy and leadership is not opposed to everyone’s fundamental equality before God.
True leadership imitates God. If Our Lord pours himself out for those he leads, if he sacrifices himself for us even though we are his unworthy servants, then all of us (far less perfect) leaders have the duty to follow his example. If I, as a father, am not thinking of my family first and giving my life to care for them, then I don’t deserve to lead them.
Leadership is oriented towards an ascent upwards towards God. Leaders don’t hoard authority and keep other down. They are conduits of upward motion because they themselves are willing to descend, to be humble, to serve.
So, what does leadership look like? To me, it’s a reflection of Christ himself. Authority is given not to rule but to love, not to dominate but to serve.
