Counterfeit Collaboration

It was definitely not my finest hour. I was pastoring a small, but growing church, and it was time to hire a youth leader. After several weeks, a prime candidate had emerged from the search. As lead pastor of this congregation, I felt quite strongly about the need to secure the “prime candidate” and shared with several of the leadership team my intent to hire this individual.

However, the campaign contained a critical omission. I neglected to allow a significant voice from a special couple into the conversation. This couple had been faithful as volunteers of their time and energies to lead the youth ministry but were, for the most part, overlooked in the decision at hand.

Realizing this family’s voice should have had more consideration, I called the husband (we will call him John) into a meeting one evening, supposedly to get his opinion on the potential candidate. “What do you think?” was my simple question to John. His answer stunned me and, to this day many years later, still causes me to shudder: “You want to know what I think? Here’s what I think. I don’t think you care what I think because I think you already have your mind made up, and it doesn’t make any difference what I think!”

John’s comments nailed me to the wall and called me out on something very dangerous in a leadership context—something I have come to label counterfeit collaboration. Counterfeit collaboration is present when a leader acts as though they want to hear the perspectives of others and to involve them in the decision-making and execution of plans but, in actuality, they have already determined the course of action; they are only feigning interest in the opinion of other organizational constituents.

Suffice it to say, my situation with John and his family did not end well (the congregation lost several good families as a result). If you have ever been guilty of this “rookie mistake,” your endeavor was most likely quite unfruitful as well.

ASSIGNED VS. EMERGENT LEADERSHIP

Assigned leadership is essentially influence exercised out of the base of position and title. Authority from the assigned position is understood as a part of the institutional culture and is a legitimate exercise of power by organizational constituents.

On the other hand, emergent leadership is influence based, not on position or title, but rather on permission given from a group as a leader “emerges” through more interactive and relational means. Both leadership types have a place in the effective function and productivity of a team setting and work in tandem to accomplish set organizational goals.

More recent trends have caused assigned leadership influence to be much more short-lived (positional power via title has a short shelf life compared to previous generations) and thus catapulted the need to emphasize attaining and maintaining leadership impact from a more emergent approach.

We have reached a day when all leaders, even those with formal positions and authority, must recognize the need to intentionally move into an arena of influence based on emergent leaders’ characteristics.

In other words, once a leader is appointed to a position, that person would be well-served to begin to picture their influence as an hourglass that has been turned over with the sand swiftly running out. The grains of positional influence will soon run out, and, in the meantime, relational influence from the permission granted by constituents will need to be in the process of development. In other words, leaders that will be effective in present-day organizational contexts will have to lead from both tracks, even when endowed with a title!

While several components comprise emergent leadership, including the strong commitment to being interactive, relational and communicative, one of the primary characteristics is always listening with a genuine concern and empathetic ear. Followers (volunteers or paid staff) in any contemporary setting are going to prove true the well-worn maxim, “People do not care what you know until they know that you care.”

MULTI-GENERATION APPRECIATION

The practice of selective listening (a first cousin to counterfeit collaboration) is characterized by collecting information from various sources but with a predetermined mindset of only giving true credence to a select group. Leaders who attempt to function from the limited scope of information, including a unigenerational perspective, often find themselves missing valuable and sometimes institutionally fatal insights.

God will often choose to use very unlikely sources (in our preconceived notions) to bring some powerful and much needed direction and provision. His grace extends to us in this fashion as He keeps us sensitive and guards us against becoming victims of self-induced tunnel-vision.

INFORMATION EXPLOSION

The amount and accessibility of information in our society over the last few decades have surely changed the world in many ways—some good, some not so much. Two expectations created by the information explosion are of particular import to leaders in the counterfeit collaboration conversation.

First, better-informed people have a more intense desire to be included in a more participative structure to speak into decision-making processes and plans. A sense of satisfaction and empowerment can permeate an organizational culture when constituents believe the leadership is sharing up-to-date and appropriate information. Not to do so is to create a climate of suspicion that quickly erodes the vital foundation of trust.

Twenty-first-century leadership understands that it is both an informed people and an informing people that are happy people. It is certainly true that if leaders are to expect buy-in, they must be willing to allow input!

The second and perhaps a little less obvious fruit created by the information explosion is the expectation of intentional diversity within the leadership team and speaking into important organizational issues. However, one should not perceive this expectation’s motive as a strong-handed move to dilute or divert legitimate processes. The diversity is more of a desperate cry for safe and well-rounded insights that speak into processes that connect present practices to a proud past while providing potential traction for a desired future.

One thing the proliferation of information has done is it has provided a glance into how much we do not know. Recognizing gaps in knowledge has made upcoming generations potentially more open to and appreciative of those who “know what we don’t.”

I recently conducted an informal survey among graduating seniors from baccalaureate programs at the Christ-centered university where I teach. When asked about planting new churches or starting new ministries within the church, the group was unanimous about the desire to have multiple generations involved in the new ministry’s foundation and ongoing operation.

Though the majority of those in this survey session were from Gen Z (born 1995-2015), not one person voiced the desire to start a “church for us,” a “church for millennials,” or even a “church for older people.” While they shared the desire and expectation to have a genuine voice in the context, this group overwhelming agreed with the following compiled paraphrase of several actual comments:

I do not want to work on a team where it’s just a bunch of young people talking. We need to have a say but not the only say. We have come to realize and appreciate the fact that those who have gone before us have “gold” to share that we could never mine without their presence and participation.

May there be a genuine welcome extended to a new generation of leaders who will genuinely collaborate and listen to others! May the ears of these leaders be open to diverse peoples and perspectives. May they discern in the listening the real direction of God, and may they correspondingly move the church, nation, and world forward with the courage and resolve necessary to hear the much anticipated “well done.”

This article was extracted from Issue 8 (Winter 2021) of the AVAIL Journal. Claim your free annual subscription here.