“The difficulty distinguishing between the ancestral identity we are bound to carry with us and the trappings of tradition we are being invited to leave behind is as real for us as it was for Moses. The dilemma’s theological implications are profound. Religion is defined by the story it does not make up but participates in. We are the inheritors of promises we are bound to sustain, beyond our ability to visualize their usefulness or current relevance. The question for leaders who are willing to shed tradition for transformation is, What are those timeless, essential promises? And what, beyond them, shall we leave behind? ”
Like every institution in the 21st century, religion today confronts existential questions about its future, uncertain of its place in an era where trust in institutions has eroded and traditional hierarchical organizational structures have started to flatten. The formerly reliable foundations of our religious life feel insecure–for no one more than clergy, who are largely trained to be solo, prophetic leaders of congregations. But in this uncertainty lies possibility. A new book by two religious leaders, Rev. Kathleen McShane and Rabbi Elan Babchuck, will help clergy, and all faith-rooted leaders, embrace the liberating opportunity this current moment provides. It’s time to adopt a new form of leadership, free of the burdens of pyramid-shaped empire that have shaped our past.
In Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership after Empire, McShane and Babchuck offer a path through and out of the ruins of old leadership frameworks that are crumbling around us. With Moses as guide, inputs from modern leadership experts, and stories of current faith-rooted leaders, McShane and Babchuck help us let go of the lone leader model that continues to persist in many of our institutions. Their guidance can free leaders from the lonely burden of shaping and pursuing a vision, to instead see leadership as an effort "to collectively breathe life into a broadly shared, living body of wisdom."
The authors use the story of Moses–his struggles, his missteps, his persistence–as a narrative thread to reflect on the challenges of leadership. Moses begins his journey in the shadow of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, a form that also reflects the model of the autocratic, pharaonic leadership of the time, where one leader sits at the top of an empire, sending dictates down from on high. Though its more autocratic elements have softened, the pyramid as organizational form largely continues to shape the way we build our institutions. But it doesn’t work very well in a world of increasing complexity, where one person cannot possibly have all the information, expertise, and wisdom needed to make the best decisions about everything. Our continued insistence on this model is shredding the motivation, participation, and mental health of both leaders and those they lead.
Some corners of both secular and religious spaces are signaling a shift, or at least interest in one, but the entrenched model of many mainstream religious institutions shows few signs of change. McShane and Babchuck offer a theological bridge that gives religious leaders a way to step into this new leadership conversation. Just as Moses journeyed from the shadow of the pyramids to the edge of a new promised land, evolving his leadership as the moment (or God) demanded, so can we.
McShane and Babchuck use the language of “liberating structures,” borrowed from Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, to describe what should replace the pyramid. The liberating structure framework “create[s] the context for everyone in the room to bring their gifts to bear” and “invite[s] change from every position, including from the outside in.” The authors note that this framework is not as sturdy a form as the pyramid. When we shift power and center new voices, things can get messy. But then, “liberation is a big promise.” We cannot get there without embracing the mess and taking risks. Like Moses, we will have missteps. Some of our experiments to share and diffuse power will likely fail, either because we don’t yet know how to do it well, or because those around us are equally entrenched in old models (the authors share their own stories of failed efforts). This is part of the journey of forging something new. Also like Moses, we should persist anyway. As McShane and Babchuck ponder, “Perhaps this is Moses’s—and every leader’s—most essential work: the long, slow painstaking process of loosening an old system’s restraints that hold our people captive.”
In addition to the leaders featured in the book, we might also look to and draw from faith traditions that have long incorporated less pyramidal structures. For instance, the Baha’i tradition has no clergy, but rather local, regional, national, and international spiritual assemblies, which are elected by the body of believers and use the collaborative Baha’i practice of “consultation” to make decisions. The Quakers organize around the importance of listening and shape their non-hierarchical meetings based on the belief that revelation can come through anyone at any time. Across the diversity of Indigenous and Dharmic religions, there are many other examples of different forms of religious leadership and organization. Sometimes, the history of our traditions carry clues as well. As McShane points out in the book, “The [early] church tried new things and no doubt failed more often than we know. But it also flourished because it invited people's active, creative engagement rather than their subscription to a plan that was already fixed in place.”
The one leader plan is leaving leaders exhausted and burned out, with dwindling numbers of people showing up to be led. The task of shedding old mindsets, practices, and power structures is challenging, no doubt. Our flourishing, though, depends on it. We need the active, creative engagement of everyone in our communities to share their wisdom, find solutions, and create opportunities. Picking Up the Pieces will help you to be a leader that nurtures such engagement, and in so doing, to liberate your own creative self.
Learn more and purchase a copy of Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership after Empire.