The “Missing Third” of Leadership
Although Susan Colantuono TED Talk is pitched particularly to women, it’s something men and women can profit from…and especially in the church. Colantuono talks about the “missing third” of leadership. She makes the case that, particularly when it comes to the advice given to women in middle management positions, we’re clear that it’s important to develop one’s own skills and talent, and we’re clear that it’s also important to develop our networks and relationships. But we don’t always value another essential dimension of leadership – that is, how to follow through on execution and get results.
In her conversations with CEOs who make decisions about promoting people, Colantuono discovered that this dimension of leadership is the given: you have to demonstrate strategic and financial acumen that leads to results in order to be promoted. But this is rarely emphasized, especially with women. Mentors and supervisors typically focus on more relational elements, either developing confidence (relationship with the self) or developing networks (relationships with others).
I’d suggest that too often we’ve also treated leadership this way in the church. We value relationships highly – which is a good thing – but sometimes so highly we act as if results don’t matter. In fact, when you bring up strategies from other industries or endeavors that stress leadership and financial acumen, you are often accused of being too “corporate” whereas we want to be more relational, even familiar. Which is perhaps part of the reason that so many of our church-based organizations – and I’m thinking particularly about seminaries – are in such dire straights. As it turns out, it’s not enough to be good at relationships, though that’s important. We also need to be good with numbers, and at thinking practically and strategically, and in executing plans that lead to meaningful results.
There’s a lot else I appreciated about Colantuono’s 14-minute talk that I’ll take up another time. For now, watch it and let me know what you learned.
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Thank you for posting this. You asked for feedback re. what we might learn from this. I particularly appreciated the last part of her talk which spoke to what Boards, HR, mentors, etc might do to recognize hidden or veiled mindsets re. the promotion of individuals (gender based or whatever) and also how to help those folks who might have underdeveloped (but not missing) business acumen. I do think that there is an uneasy relationship in the church betw. corporate practices vs. church practices…and also a uneasy relationship betw. an individual’s desire in theory to help nurture leadership (pastors and church “executives”) and an unhealthy spirit of competitiveness due to a lack of available opportunities? or insecurity? or what have you. I welcome and would love to see more intentional nurturing/strategic help for those folks in church leadership who show the persistence, desire, and promise to develop their financial and visionary acumen as applied to churches and denominations. When you consider that we, in the church, ask our lay leadership to shadow team leadership positions to learn the ropes, (example: a co-treasurer or co-moderator) then why wouldn’t we do the same for our Pastoral leadership in seminary training or after seminary as the person progresses in skill level. I would have LOVED to shadow a seminary president or a church leader of an urban church (not as an associate, but as someone who interned or was closely mentored in the financial/visionary aspects of a large non-profit, including the church. However, there are so many requirements in seminary that I don’t honestly think that this need to occur there (because the candidate may not be ready for this). It is something that I see necessary to our middle judicatory, so to speak, with the denominations or as a development program for those women and men wanting to go to the next level in their leadership but wondering exactly how to do this. Sometimes I think that our “church and ministry” committees (not sure of the equivalent in other denominations) would be the place for this — instead of just focusing on problems in leadership, can we ask ministry partners (pastors, etc) what goals and visions they might have in terms of development (professional) and “match” them with folks or churches or even other non-profits that might help nurture/develop this financial and business savvy to promote church leadership at every level.