Six Hallmarks of the New Leadership vs. The Old Leadership

God has been talking to me and others around the world about a coming shift: in positions, in authority, in structures, in anointing and in resources. I know that we need to be on the right side of this shift when it happens, because our focus and our practice will mean a new level of success in the coming days, or surprising new levels of failure.

There is something new going on! God is instituting something new in ministry, in the Church, among families, and in the marketplace. There will be new avenues for reaching out into the world; many of them exist even now. There will be new and more effective structures implemented. There will be new establishments of the Kingdom of God arising in the earth; along with the resources to plant and grow them.

This shift will not contradict the guidelines that God has given us in His word — it will only serve to strengthen them where we have become weak; to re-align to them where we have become misaligned. But it will present new challenges and new opportunities to those who are ready and waiting on Him right now! One of the areas of new opportunity is coming to us in the area of leadership. If we can step up into the new way, we will enjoy unprecedented success. If we cling to old patterns in this new day, it may be the final blow that leads to our demise as effective ministers of the Kingdom. Here are six hallmarks of the new leadership versus the old:

The Old Leadership

* Leaders focus on the link between the effort and results: reward or punishment.

* Leadership’s basic orientation is dealing with present issues.

* Leaders rely on standard forms of inducement, reward, punishment, social manipulation and sanction to control followers.

* Leaders motivate followers by setting goals, and promising rewards for desired performance.

* Leadership depends on the leader’s power to reinforce subordinates for their successful completion of the task.

* System of rewards and punishments given on monetary or social levels reduce the motivation of followers to small, self-concerned goals.

The New Leadership

* Leaders motivate others to act beyond the framework of effort for immediate results.

* Leadership is proactive and forms new expectations of success in followers.

* Leaders build teams, provide vision, individualized consideration, growth resources, a positive example and share real-world rewards.

* Leaders create learning opportunities for their followers and stimulate followers to solve problems.

* Leaders develop strong skills in themselves and others, and surround themselves by a team with good visioning, speaking and management skills. they also develop relational bonds with followers.

* Leaders motivate followers to work for goals that go beyond self-interest: developing relational bonds, broadening vision and purpose and inspiring expectations for higher levels of success.

When looking at the list it seems evident that the Church has always been positioned to operate in this way. But the old-school high church settings of our grandparents’ day seemed to stultify the role of leadership to simply sticking — sometimes fiercely — to the same old routine of avoiding the punishment of hell and looking to the rewards of heaven. Then came the “corporate wave” of church leadership. This wave re-structured church leadership to more closely resemble models in the business world. This model was more task oriented, and sought results in the areas of church growth, program offerings and efficiency.

Now God is calling us up to our birthright as leaders who inspire something more, who give of ourselves, who are carriers of a larger vision, and who focus on building the Kingdom of God in the earth. We do this by holding power lightly and using it to benefit those who follow; by building team, seeing the potential in others, cultivating it and promoting them rather than ourselves. Like I said in previous posts, I’m trying to learn how to do this along with everyone else. But I pray that God will work it in us — for His Kingdom to be established.

Six qualities of Successful Leaders (jscotthusted.wordpress.com)