Leadership Philosophy
Mission-Focused: By this, I don't mean mission statement focused. I mean, leadership that is grounded in a bigger sense of WHY. This includes my sense of call to Unitarian Universalist ministry as well as why the Unitarian Universalist faith and our congregations are needed in today's world. All of this is well summarized by the mission statement the Board has been using this past year: furthering the reach of love - to keep bringing more love into our own hearts and lives and all across our communities, rippling out into the larger world. I believe in leadership that seeks to achieve this mission more fully and in more ways in an ever-changing world.
Collaborative: I am not interested in solo leadership - the partnership and relationship of leadership is the point. I care about discovering together, growing together, building together - honoring the unique gifts and skills each person can bring in service of a greater whole. Covenant is the ends and the means. Unitarian ethicist Sharon Welch goes so far as to talk about collaboration as the only possible moral and ethical mode for leadership and action - that you can't be moral if you are acting alone. I agree.
Equipping: My style of leadership is to equip more and more people to be able to serve the bigger WHY in greater and more meaningful ways. This shows up through invitations to leadership, trainings and educational opportunities, and most of all through ongoing conversation and dialogue that allows leadership to take hold in partnership. The Worship Learning Community (WLC) is a great example of an "equipping" leadership philosophy: over the past 2 years I have been working with the WLC, exploring and learning about the best practices of worship in Unitarian Universalism. The recent Worship Arts Retreat - with 40 attendees, a number of whom were from other UU congregations - had the WLC members becoming the teachers and leaders around the creation and experience of UU worship.
Adaptive: More than just meaning flexible, an adaptive approach to leadership means a willingness to live with unpredictability, an orientation towards ongoing and mutual learning, and a capacity to find joy and creativity in the unexpected, rather than getting stuck or bogged down. It means turning challenges into opportunities by asking powerful questions, and wrestling with a situation through dialogue before attempting to simply fix it. This style allows us to get to the underlying and more complex issues, setting the stage for a more powerful growth opportunity. Most of all it means inspiring and mobilizing people to tackle these challenges collaboratively and to thrive in the midst of life's constant changes, pulling from the best of our past in order to create our future. My orientation to adaptive leadership is what leads me to believe so strongly in a model of learning communities in congregational life.
Transformational: Dan Hotchkiss tells the story of a church leader whose membership in his church inspired him to realign his priorities, leave his well-paying job for one less well-paying, and to be more generous and service-oriented to his community. Hotchkiss asked the leader, if he would've known that all of this was what it meant to become a member in the church, would he have decided to join? The member replied, without much hesitation, no. He said it would've scared him, and he didn't see at the time why that would ever be appealing. And yet ultimately his church membership created a desire for a life more closely aligned with his heart's true purpose, and that desire led to real transformation. This is what I mean when I talk about transformational leadership. My hope is that we are always listening for where the call of love is leading us - as individuals and as a community. And then that we will create a vision to guide us towards that call, inspire each other towards going there, and then work in partnership - each sharing our particular gifts and unique skills - as we make that vision a reality.
Collaborative: I am not interested in solo leadership - the partnership and relationship of leadership is the point. I care about discovering together, growing together, building together - honoring the unique gifts and skills each person can bring in service of a greater whole. Covenant is the ends and the means. Unitarian ethicist Sharon Welch goes so far as to talk about collaboration as the only possible moral and ethical mode for leadership and action - that you can't be moral if you are acting alone. I agree.
Equipping: My style of leadership is to equip more and more people to be able to serve the bigger WHY in greater and more meaningful ways. This shows up through invitations to leadership, trainings and educational opportunities, and most of all through ongoing conversation and dialogue that allows leadership to take hold in partnership. The Worship Learning Community (WLC) is a great example of an "equipping" leadership philosophy: over the past 2 years I have been working with the WLC, exploring and learning about the best practices of worship in Unitarian Universalism. The recent Worship Arts Retreat - with 40 attendees, a number of whom were from other UU congregations - had the WLC members becoming the teachers and leaders around the creation and experience of UU worship.
Adaptive: More than just meaning flexible, an adaptive approach to leadership means a willingness to live with unpredictability, an orientation towards ongoing and mutual learning, and a capacity to find joy and creativity in the unexpected, rather than getting stuck or bogged down. It means turning challenges into opportunities by asking powerful questions, and wrestling with a situation through dialogue before attempting to simply fix it. This style allows us to get to the underlying and more complex issues, setting the stage for a more powerful growth opportunity. Most of all it means inspiring and mobilizing people to tackle these challenges collaboratively and to thrive in the midst of life's constant changes, pulling from the best of our past in order to create our future. My orientation to adaptive leadership is what leads me to believe so strongly in a model of learning communities in congregational life.
Transformational: Dan Hotchkiss tells the story of a church leader whose membership in his church inspired him to realign his priorities, leave his well-paying job for one less well-paying, and to be more generous and service-oriented to his community. Hotchkiss asked the leader, if he would've known that all of this was what it meant to become a member in the church, would he have decided to join? The member replied, without much hesitation, no. He said it would've scared him, and he didn't see at the time why that would ever be appealing. And yet ultimately his church membership created a desire for a life more closely aligned with his heart's true purpose, and that desire led to real transformation. This is what I mean when I talk about transformational leadership. My hope is that we are always listening for where the call of love is leading us - as individuals and as a community. And then that we will create a vision to guide us towards that call, inspire each other towards going there, and then work in partnership - each sharing our particular gifts and unique skills - as we make that vision a reality.