Shepherd Leadership and Transformation In John 8:7, it was narrated about Jesus, “So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Not one of them responded. Consequently, he uttered the transformational words: “Woman, go and sin no more.” Transformation is a necessity in the leader-follower relationship. The shepherd leads and knows that he has to be sensitive to anything that will be detrimental to the progress of the flock. The shepherd leader is a transformation champion. In a bid to lead in the right direction, the shepherd leader changes strategies and tactics as appropriate. To change, we need to give up the lesser and go for the greater. There should be a deliberate effort to achieve a trade-off. Something substandard must die in the leader for something standard to be born. Improvements come when leaders accept their mistakes and strive to improve upon such mistakes. Taking the example of a simple, early morning wake-up call to our family, we can demonstrate the change processes required in any transformation effort: State why the change is necessary Seek involvement of the followers Support them Monitor sustenance of the change Reward the followers for embracing the change State why the change is necessary For instance, as leaders and models, first we need to be convinced why it is important and necessary for us to wake up early in the morning before convincing our family members to join us in the early morning prayers. When we take the driver’s seat and the followers take the owner’s corner, the followers feel important and enjoy the prestige resulting from the swap. This analogy can be made more alive if we savor the gist in the “Vatican Humor” story posted on the Internet and reproduced below: After getting all of Pope Benedict’s luggage loaded into the limo (and he doesn’t travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the curb. “Excuse me, Your Holiness,” says the driver, “would you please take your seat so we can leave?” “Well, to tell you the truth,” says the Pope, “they never let me drive at the Vatican when I was a cardinal, and I’d really like to drive today!” “I’m sorry, Your Holiness, but I cannot let you do that. I’d lose my job! What if something should happen?” protests the driver, wishing he’d never gone to work that morning. “Who’s going to tell?” asks the Pope with a smile. Reluctantly, the driver gets in the backseat as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel. The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 127 mph. “Please slow down, Your Holiness!” pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens. “Oh, dear God, I’m going to lose my license—and my job!” moans the driver. The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches, but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio. “I need to talk to the chief,” he says to the dispatcher. The chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he’s stopped a limo going 127 mph. “So bust him,” says the chief. “I don’t think we want to do that; he’s really important,” says the cop. The chief exclaims, “All the more reason!” “No, I mean really important,” says the cop with a bit of persistence. The chief then asks, “Who do you have there, the mayor?” “Bigger,” the cop says. “A senator?” the chief asks. “Bigger” “The prime minister?” “Bigger.” “Well,” says the chief, “who is it?” “I think it’s God!” The chief is even more puzzled and curious. “What makes you think it’s God?” “His chauffeur is the Pope!” When as leaders we become the chauffeurs, we make the followers swollen headed. They would wholeheartedly support our leadership vision. Because the leader goes before the followers, he naturally receives the bullet that is fired at the followers. This analogy explains what Christ faced on the cross. Having illustrated the first step of stating why change is necessary, we shall consider the next four stages in the family wake-up example: Seek involvement of the followers As transformation leaders, we need to seek the involvement of our family by talking them into the change required. To get their conviction, the derivable benefits must be explained to them. We need to do this with passion and persistency. Support them Through the change, our family members should be effectively supported by our exemplary conduct. As much as we encourage them to wake up in the morning for prayers, we should ask them to do the same for us from time to time. Monitor sustenance of the change There should be a deliberate effort to ensure that we monitor our family members’ progress on the path of change until it becomes a natural part of their daily lives. If we sustain our monitoring, we will reduce the chances of our family members falling back to the old ways of not waking up in the morning to pray. Reward the followers for embracing the change Finally, we should reward the family members as appropriate, adopting soft (encouraging words) and hard (material) incentives and always reminding them of the benefits accruable to them if they sustain the change. From the five steps above, we find that communication, involvement, support, monitoring, and rewards are important in the cycle of change management. The prescription from the foregoing steps is that when we find ourselves in situations that require change, as leaders, we should break the required change into steps and deal with them systematically. There are no sacrosanct rules that apply to all situations. For example, Blanchard and Hodges condensed the steps of change to three: diagnosis, flexibility, and collaborating for performance. Transformation is situational in application. In the context of shepherd leadership, it provides a flexible framework for describing and applying the service-mindedness that Christ deployed. As an instance, Christ created the effect of service-mindedness when He washed the feet of the disciples. He did that so that the disciples would then do it to one another. Sometimes Christ prayed alone, and at other times, He prayed with the disciples. Sometimes He was among the multitude, and at other times, He was alone. This pattern was also to remind them that practices were not static, but subject to change. Leaders make adjustments in leadership styles as necessary. The intent is to have the future better than the present. In this vein, management and strategy authors Thompson and Martin reasoned, “To improve your future, there has to be a relentless discomfort with the status quo.” Transformational change is a deliberate and continuous process intended to improve an entire system.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 15:00:00 +0000
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