‘Storying the leading’: curating narratives of leadership in conversation with Vaughan S. Roberts and David Sims, Leading by Story
Online veröffentlicht: 16. Juni 2020
Seitenbereich: 149 - 165
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/holiness-2018-0002
Schlüsselwörter
© 2018 Andrew Stobart, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Over the past three decades, storytelling has become a key tool across a number of disciplines within theology and the social sciences. In their book Vaughan S. Roberts and David Sims,
Attending to the connection between leadership and stories – or, as Roberts and Sims pleasingly put it, ‘storying the leading’ See Chapter 2, ‘Leading the Stories and Storying the Leading’. Roberts and Sims,
Engaging in cross-cultural conversation is a recognised way of exposing the values and perspectives that are otherwise difficult to see when we are only talking to people who share our assumptions. Telling stories of leadership – whether good, bad or otherwise – in a cross-cultural group setting enables us to begin to pick out the values embedded in those stories. A healthy practice, as recommended in a pastoral setting by Gordon Lynch, is to record leadership encounters verbatim in order to enable an interrogation of the interventions made, the ideas communicated and the patterns of language used. G. Lynch, ‘I’m in circuit ministry and within our circuit we have a leadership team which comprises the ministers and circuit stewards. We always meet in the afternoon because the circuit officers are retired and the presbyters, who have entire control over our diaries, quite like not to go out in the evenings. A very able working-age person came to me and said, “I would love to be part of the leadership team and would love to help shape the vision of the circuit going forward.” So I went to the leadership team and told them about this person who really wanted to be involved in what we do. They said, “But we would have to meet in the evening.” And that was their resistance to having an able, working-age lay person involved in leadership in the church.’ ‘A similar story: I’m a Circuit Steward and the only woman officer on the team. I thought it would be nice to have another woman – and someone who is below the age of about 50 – and so I asked a capable young woman I knew if she would be prepared to become a circuit steward. She thought about it a long time, and then she came back and said “Yes”. But when I brought it to the meeting of the circuit stewards, one of the stewards said, “But she has a baby! So how are we going to cope in the meeting if she brings her baby?” That was the reaction I had.’ ‘The church where I had the pleasure of working was a medium-sized church, but there were a lot of volunteers. The church office was essentially run by volunteers. One man in particular would always come in at least two or three times a week to ask if anyone wanted coffee. He was retired, and had been a very accomplished journalist for the major local paper, reviewing art, music and other entertainment. He would serve by going to get coffee for anyone who wanted it. He would be the first person to greet people coming to the church. He would also very dutifully and kindly edit the worship bulletin, and fold all 160 copies of the bulletin each week. He was an amazing person, who passed away recently. He was a very durable saint.’ ‘I have something to share about one of the ministers in the church in my country [a southern African state]. He's retired now, but I want to share the story of when he disobeyed an instruction from the President of the country. It was common practice in the 1980s, if a minister of the government died – whether he or she was a Christian or not – the State would simply instruct one of the churches and say, “Conduct a service for this person. It will take place, so get organised.” One of the government ministers died, and the office of the President instructed that this particular church, which could accommodate about three to four thousand people, should organise the service. The minister of the church received a phone call from the office of the President to say, “Would you prepare a church service for this government minister tomorrow. He is being given a state funeral at your church.” The pastor asked for the name of the official who had died, and when he was told, he said, “Let me first check through my records and see if this person is a communicant member.” The policy of the national church was that the body of the deceased could not be taken into a church if that person was not a communicant member; those were the regulations. This particular government minister was not on the roll of the church, so the pastor responded saying that he did not qualify to be brought into the church, and the church service could not be conducted there. However, the state representatives insisted that this was an instruction from the President, so he should just go ahead and obey. So the minister said “OK”, but the following day he locked up the church building, and left. As far as the government was concerned, everything was arranged, so when the body was brought up to the church building, there was confusion because they found the door locked. Even the state President was there. So they got the police to come and break into the church, and the service went ahead. Afterwards the President instructed the leadership of the national church to deal with the minister of the church. That very night, the minister was transferred out from that congregation to a very far-away place. I’m just sharing that story to look at the cost of his actions, whether they were brave, bold, courageous or fundamental.’ ‘This story made a profound impression upon me: it must have been about 1956 when our very first long-playing record player was delivered to our house. Of course, the new player couldn’t play our old records, so we had to buy our very first long-playing record. My parents bought a record of the songs from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera ‘The principal of a Methodist theological college in the South Pacific really impressed me as a leader. He lives in one of the most conservative societies that I’ve ever encountered and, as principal of the college, acts like a chief. He runs the college to make sure that in every detail it fits in with the protocol, ritual and tradition of the local culture. At the same time, he is leading the college on a path of excellence in academic work and is being quietly subversive. For instance, he is bringing people in to run seminars on postcolonial biblical study and is making suggestions about ways in which women can move into leadership in the Church. He says “While I can’t change the culture on my own, I can do something to make things a little better.”’ ‘My story is of a minister who recently requested to be moved, even though he was in a good circuit that had plenty of resources to pay him well, which is rare in my country in East Africa. He is serving with another minister, who is his superintendent. When I asked why he wanted to be transferred, he told me that he doesn’t want to reach a point where he would disagree with the superintendent minister, which might taint his ministry for the future. He told me that he had better leave that circuit and go to another where he would feel comfortable serving, without any issues with the superintendent. I asked him if he was sure he was not the problem, and then he shared with me the reasons he had at first been reluctant to share. Finally I told him, “Fine, if you feel that is what is going to make your ministry good, then so be it.” He replied, “I would like to continue serving my present circuit” – it is very lively (and in fact he is loved by the people) – “but I mean to sacrifice this and leave for the sake of my ministry.” I prayed for him that when the time comes he will leave properly and comfortably.’ ‘My story is from East Belfast, where I was minister of a church for one year. During that year the Boys’ Brigade celebrated their eightieth anniversary and we had a big celebration. After the service there was a supper and I was walking around, talking to all the old boys of the Boys’ Brigade who’d come back. Many of these men were very successful in their careers, and by the end of the evening my cassock pockets were full of cheques that they wanted to give to the church to say thank you for what the Boys’ Brigade had done for them. That evening a story emerged of a Boys’ Brigade leader who, throughout the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which lasted more than 30 years, would drive the church minibus around every night to transport boys from the community to activities connected with the Boys’ Brigade. Those boys, who were now men, kept saying to me, “If it had not been for him, I would have been in the paramilitaries. I might even be dead by now.” A day or two later I told this man, who was now a church steward, that I’d heard all these stories, and I said, “That's amazing!” And he said, “Well, anybody would have done that.” And I said, “No, they didn’t, you did!” He was actually awarded the MBE for that work a couple of years ago. He had no idea of the worth and the impact of the way he had led that community to keep their children out of the paramilitaries.’ ‘I want to tell you a story. My friend led a mission trip to a Central African state. He went with his generator and his PowerPoint and his very slick talk to tribal groups in villages in Central Africa. They went as a team and they set up their tent and generator outside the village and my friend waited for people to come and sit where they’d provided some seating. The first day came and went, and no one came. The second day came and went, and no one came. On the third day he thought, “Well, I might as well make use of the generator.” So he got his hair clippers to clip his hair. As he started, some small boys came out of the village to see what he was doing. They sat on the seat and pointed to their hair. And he thought, “I don’t want to cut their hair – it's never been cut. It will be like cutting a bird's nest.” But then he thought, “Well, I somehow have to communicate with these people.” So he started to cut their hair, and as soon as he started to cut the first boy's hair there was a queue right back to the village. He was thinking, “My poor clippers! They will never be the same again after cutting all this hair that's never been cut before!” The next day, the chief came out of the village, got in the queue and sat on the seat. My friend thought, “This is the chief.” So he asked, “What can I do for you?” And the chief replied, “Cut my hair.” So he cut the hair of the chief, and when it was done, the chief said to him, “What have you come here for?” He replied, “I came to tell you about the love of Jesus.” The chief said, “Now you have cut our hair, we will listen to you.”’
By paying attention to the way and words in which these stories were told, a number of themes began to emerge, which can be understood as the values that have informed why these stories were chosen as stories that in some way exemplify leadership. The following themes were initially identified:
‘One thing I noticed is the role that ‘We talked about ‘We talked about leadership being ‘We talked about the potential misuse of power, and the ‘We talked about the way we all made up our minds and came to our conclusions about the ‘We recognised a
Storytelling is a powerful heuristic tool to examine leadership. As we have seen above, the particular way a story of leadership is told will inevitably foreground one or more themes or values while obscuring others. One of the contributions made by Roberts and Sims is their nuanced approach to such stories. Stories can be told about beliefs, buildings and people; about the past, present and future; to protect identity, encourage transformation, or rally supporters. Importantly, the nature of stories means they are rarely monolithic. However much we may resist the notion, as Roberts and Sims insist, ‘We live simultaneously in many different stories.’ Roberts and Sims, This concept is taken from Yiannis Gabriel, ‘Narrative Ecologies and the Role of Counter-Narratives’, in S. Frandsen, T. Kuhn and M. W. Lundholt (eds),
Chapter 5, ‘Who Owns the Story?’, contains significant insights that inform the development of narrative leadership in the remainder of the book. Roberts and Sims note that stories lend themselves to being polyvocal and multi-authored, meaning that their ownership is often unclear. As a story is passed on and told by a variety of people, it can in fact take on a life of its own, moving out of the close control of the original narrator. Such stories, which ‘refuse to be disciplined’, Roberts and Sims, Roberts and Sims,
The concept that Roberts and Sims reach for to summarise this complex process is ‘curation’. Leading by story is compared with curating an exhibition:
The art of curating is not only the selection of objects, but the creation of a story that puts those objects together, that turns them into a narrative. So curating is itself a way of crafting the story, both by the selection and encouragement of some elements of the story, and in giving a plot line to the way that the elements of the stories are seen together. Roberts and Sims,
Curation, by its nature, recognises the broad narrative ecology mentioned above. There are many different kinds of story that might sit alongside one another and interact in meaningful ways. Roberts and Sims develop an ecology that acknowledges three main genres of story that are present in churches: interpretive, identity and improvised. Interpretive stories give a big picture of the mission and work of a church. Identity stories provide self-understanding in particular local contexts. Improvised stories are ‘stories being cultivated or improvised in local churches which – depending upon specific climate and conditions – can grow in a wide variety of different ways’. Roberts and Sims, Theological narratives Ecclesial narratives Liturgical narratives Historical narratives Organisational narratives Personal narratives Finance Architecture Governance Pastoral Mission Education Media Art Untended narratives
In Chapter 9, Roberts and Sims offer a case study of the introduction of Natural Church Development (described as a ‘managerialist approach to ministry’ Roberts and Sims, Leaders need to be aware of stories circulating. Leaders can modify negative stories. People are empowered if they can contribute to the story. Leaders need to know that all their actions can become stories. Leaders recognise multivocality. Roberts and Sims,
Recognising the rich ecology of narratives that populates the landscape of our churches is one of the significant lessons to be learned from Roberts’ and Sims’ book. In our exploration of leadership narratives at the session at Wesley House, we tested the fruitfulness of this approach by choosing one of the stories that had been told, considering the different narratives that were at play within it. Considering the stories that were present in the situation – and those that were hidden or absent – led to a careful interrogation of the leadership that had been offered, and stimulated a more holistic, contextually aware approach. The story we considered was that of the minister who refused to officiate at a state funeral. Here, the stories identified by the Wesley House group have been recorded according to the narrative ecology outlined above.
The story of the government minister who had died was notable for its absence in this situation. It was pointed out that the deceased's wishes had not been part of the consideration of the funeral arrangements, since it was government policy at the time that any government minister who had died, Christian or not, should have a Christian state service. This person had not, to the knowledge of the narrator, been to any church in his life as a regular worshipper. The ‘disappearance’ of the personal narrative of the deceased indicates the precedence of the story of the government and its policy of state funerals. This is an improvised story because it arose in the particular circumstances that prevailed at the time: while there were many stories of government corruption circulating at that time, the Church and State were not in conflict at that moment, providing a rationale for the state funerals to be conducted; while all Christian denominations were included in the policy, this particular church was used regularly because of its ability to accommodate a large congregation. Following this incident, the government began to use a different church building instead, and this church was no longer approached to conduct state funerals. This incident prompted one British participant in the conversation to reflect on the only state funeral they had witnessed in person: the state funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965. Churchill was not a Christian, and did not express sympathy with the Christian faith, and yet St Paul's Cathedral must have been approached in a very similar way to the church in our leadership story. It is easy for us to balk at the practice of this southern African state; however, it has formed part of the history of the United Kingdom, and other places, too. The story of a church that has a policy of only holding services for people on the roll is of significant interest. This practice was brought into sharp relief by the experience of one participant who that day had conducted funeral services in a church for two people who were not members of the church, neither of whom would have expressed an explicit Christian faith. Further conversation clarified the practice of the church in the leadership story. The national policy was that if a person who was not a believer died, then their body could not be taken into the church building for a funeral service. This policy stood, even when the close family members were believers. In that case, support would be offered through prayers at the home, but no church funeral service would be conducted. The minister in this leadership story was basing his actions on the notion of justice in applying the church's policy. According to our narrator, he had explained his rationale in the following way: ‘For the sake of justice, if I have denied some members of my congregation who have lost their dear ones, saying that the body of your relative is not going to pass through the church, then why should I allow this person simply because he is a government minister? I cannot do that for the sake of justice.’ The minister was bringing a wealth of other pastoral narratives into play, weighing the demands of the situation against integrity towards the other stories he had been part of over his ministry in that place. And he stood his ground, even when instructed by the state President, arguing that there were no exceptions in the policy for government ministers. The new insight brought by the preceding information began to transform our understanding of this leadership narrative, by highlighting the theme of justice towards other people. Now, the stories of other people – ‘little people’ – who have had the church's policy applied to their loved ones are recognised, and it is perceived important that their stories are not to be diminished by changing the rules for someone else, just because that person is significant in the government's eyes. As one participant notes, ‘I think for me it suddenly becomes something of a parable. I could almost imagine reading it in the Gospels!’ It is interesting to consider the response of the minister's congregation as this story unfolded. They apparently had no issue with the decision that he had made, since they had all in some way been affected by the policy in the past. When they understood that their minister had been pressured to bend the rules for someone ‘important’, and that he had instead stood his ground, they were adamant that the minister had been right: ‘The minister is correct that we are all equal in the eyes of God.’ This view was shared by other members of the clerical fraternity too, who had also upheld the policy in their own churches. The ministry of the church ‘organisation’ had been shaped by this policy over many years, and the minister in question was now throwing light on an ill-considered attempt to undermine it. The actions of this minister had repercussions because the national church leaders viewed the incident through the lens of the Church–State relationship. There was concern that his subversive actions would reflect badly on the Church, especially if it were perceived that the Church sanctioned what he had done. Therefore, the national Church moved quickly to discipline the minister, responding also to the request of the State that the minister be transferred immediately. The Church could not readily dismiss or discharge the minister, since he had in fact only been upholding their own policy; instead, they removed him from this prestigious church and sent him to a far-flung rural appointment. The minister reluctantly agreed to the move, but was clearly unhappy, exclaiming that it showed the Church ‘was a Church led by cowards’. In his mind, the repercussions showed that the church leaders were operating under the State's tutelage, rather than as an autonomous Church whose freedom from interference was protected by the Constitution. The failure of the Church to challenge the government's attitude therefore indicated a more syncretist operant relationship. Having considered the various narrative strands that were present at the time of the situation, it is interesting to think about the ‘future stories’ that encapsulate the expectations of the characters at the time, and the reality of what became of those expectations. So, for instance, the national church leaders anticipated that their disciplinary action against the minister would regain the trust of the State; but, in actual fact, subsequent state funerals were held in another denomination's building, and didn’t return to this church, despite the building's merits as a venue. The minister's own narrative was dramatically impacted by the incident. From an initial move to a different province, he was supported by the national Church to study overseas for a doctorate, and then seconded to another national Church for theological education. It could be argued that, rather than being curtailed, his scope of influence expanded as a result of this situation. These may be characterised as ‘untended narratives’ since they recount the consequences of the choices made by both Church and minister that were not perceived at the time.
There are undoubtedly other strands that could be extracted from this densely woven narrative. However, the value of the approach offered by Roberts and Sims is not merely in the identification of these varied strands, but especially in noting the way in which they were curated together. There are, of course, two levels at play. First, and most immediately, there is the way in which this leadership moment was narrated to the group at Wesley House. Comparing the initial telling with the list of further narrative strands identified above provides an indication of the leadership themes that were important to the initial narrator, and those that were hidden or absent. This brings into focus cultural differences in the aims and practice of leadership: for instance, the story of the deceased man and his family, which was absent from the initial telling, was considered to be of crucial significance for the discussion group members who had experience of ministering in the British context. Noting this in turn challenged both assumptions: the one is challenged to consider where room might be found for the deceased and the grieving in a story that is otherwise about Church–State relations; the other is challenged to look beyond immediate pastoral concerns to the influence of funeral practice on the wider church community's thinking and being. ‘Storying the leadership’ is thus an important reflective tool to interrogate one's own leadership priorities and assumptions. Whose story is being told? Whose story is being muted? What themes are highlighted or obscured by the way I curate stories of leadership?
Second, reflecting on this leadership
In order to apply Roberts’ and Sims’ work to their own leadership practice, the group at Wesley House was asked to reflect on alternative ways of responding to the narrated situation that would have led to a differently curated leadership story. This led to three significant observations that were considered to be conclusions drawn from the discussion, and areas for further reflection and research.
First was the role that When you curate something, as I have, you are conscious of some factors, but there are other factors of which you are not conscious. I wonder if there are unconscious dimensions to this situation to which the minister himself was not alert. So, for instance, he may or may not have been alert to his instinct not to consult, but it seems to me that that is a feature of the way he curated the stories – he acted out of his own principles, and did not consult to find out what perspectives other people had on the situation.
Consultation may have brought new insight, or at least a greater awareness of the other narratives at play. Wise curation acknowledges the need to consult with others whose stories are intertwined in the situation. Leaders who ‘lead by story’ are thus not simply good storytellers; they are also good facilitators and listeners: ‘Leading needs to involve enabling people to tell their stories, hearing the stories that are being told, and enabling others to hear the stories too.’ Roberts and Sims,
The group identified a further important leadership exercise: the For an example of ‘rehearsal’ within the context of pastoral supervision, see Jane Leach and Michael Paterson,
Finally, understanding leadership as curation highlights the
Vaughan Roberts and David Sims have offered a profound insight into the nature of leadership that both provokes and requires further reflection and experimentation.
Two further comments may be made by way of review of Roberts’ and Sims’ book, as a result of our shared reflection at Wesley House. First, the conversation that Wesley House hosted was made possible only because of its cross-cultural richness. As noted earlier, intentional cross-cultural dialogue is a reliable way of both observing and moving beyond the hidden assumptions that we often operate with in a particular setting. Cross-cultural stories do not figure prominently in this book, which is essentially located in a Western and Northern church context. How might we be more intentional about hearing
Second, Roberts and Sims are to be encouraged to be bolder in holding out their work as a tool for church leadership today. In their conclusion they note: ‘In offering a narrative understanding of leadership in churches, we are not saying that here, at last, is the true understanding of how to lead.’ Their motivation is, of course, commendable; they do not wish to claim a false monopoly of the field, and so they simply wish to add narrative leadership ‘as a contribution to the menu of ideas and options that you bring with you to situations in which you wish to lead or to support leadership’. Roberts and Sims,
Perhaps the most telling commendation of this book is the observation that Roberts’ and Sims’ idiom – leader as curator – has trickled into the shared discourse of Wesley House. It is not uncommon to hear it used in conversation, in sermon or in committee. Or even, thanks to the Principal, on BBC Radio 4's ‘Thought for the Day’, 22 January 2018.