I was reading a book…

And in this book, it was talking about leadership. Specifically leadership in a team, where all the team members are pulling together, whether they agree fully or not.

It left me thinking: no group of leaders - exectutives, church councils, charity boards - is ever going to be in full agreement all the time, right? But decisions still have to be made. The question isn’t, then, isn’t whether or not we fully agree all the time, but whether or not we can get behind a decision even when we don’t like it all that much.

Reaching a constant concensus in a group of leaders is essentially paralyzing. Not only that, any group that tacitly or otherwise insists on it isn’t showing the sort of wisdom one would expect from leaders - at least successful leaders.

dan (there will always be situations where someone will have to do the right thing, and the tough thing)

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Posted November 29th, 2005 in main. Tagged: .

4 comments:

  1. Chris:

    Dang, you keep bringing up topics that I want to respond to. Stop it! :-)

    I was at the Moody Bible Instititute’s pastor’s conference last year, and in a workshop there Dr. Gene Getz (the pastor of one of the big Bible churches in Dallas) talked about church leadership structure and decision making. It was eye-opening for me.

    At our church we have long based decisions pretty much on the consensus model. If any one of the half-dozen guys in the meeting disagreed, then we’d table the issue until everybody was in agreement. At times this has kept us from doing things that really need done.

    Dr Getz suggested that decision by consensus was a bad way to go, because, as you note, it’s going to be hard to get a group of leaders to agree all of the time. Each person may have legitimate reasons for feeling the way they do. And yet, a decision must be made. He says that on his elder board, they go by a simple majority vote. Men who disagree are very much allowed to do so. He reasons that if consensus is required, men with legitimate concerns or disagreements might not share them because they don’t want to rock the boat. Allow them to disagree. But then go with the sense of the majority. Right along with the ability to disagree, though, is that once the decision is made, everybody needs to get behind it.

    I think it’s wise counsel, and I’m hoping we can move to that model in the future.

    November 29th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
  2. daniel:

    Exactly! The concensus model allows a lot of bad to happen - one guy can stonewall an entire church council and such. But it also fosters - and I think you’re quite right when you pointed this out - an atmosphere of herd logic and groupthing and depresses honest discussion and disagreement.

    dan (agrees with Chris… and me)

    November 29th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
  3. Roger:

    I think everyone should agree with me.

    Hey, at least I’m honest enough to admit it.

    November 29th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
  4. daniel:

    Roger, you ARE concensus.

    dan

    November 29th, 2005 at 9:41 pm

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