Dear Colleagues,
Thanks to Gary Lundquist for initiating the current thread on
leadership. I have followed the thread with interest. Work on a
long-overdue manuscript keeps me from taking an active part.
One thought may contribute to the dialogue.
Bob Carr suggested, "we should also distinguish the process of
leadership from the outcomes of leadership." I was surprised that his
examples generated nearly no comment.
Bob continued, "In this way we could say yes, Hitler was a great
process leader and a terrible outcome leader. In the same vein, we
might say that Jesus Christ was a poor process leader and a fantastic
outcome leader."
Hitler was not a great process leader. He was able, through
manipulation, deceit, and violence to seize control of a
nation-state. At many points in his ascent to power, Hitler deceived
allies outside his immediate circle. He also deceived and intimidated
his opponents. This is not a leadership process in any constructive
sense. It is a process of warfare conducted by partially political
means that were later expanded to military means and genocide.
To achieve his goals, Hitler masked his intentions. He masked many of
his beliefs and he often lied about what he and his followers
actually did. While this campaign was outlined in Mein Kampf, few
people understood the meaning of Big Lie politics. Those who did
understand what the Big Lie meant did not believe it would apply to
them. Many accepted the notion that terrible means would apply to
others while they would share in the vague and glorious ends toward
which Der Fuhrer would lead them. They were mistaken.
Leadership generally involves a relationship of freely given
commitment on the part of followers. This must be distinguished from
the legitimate relationship that requires obedience on the part of
subordinates, subjects, or citizens. It is clearly distinct from the
coercive relationship that compels obedience on the part of those
whom a powerful actor subjugates, regulates, or controls.
We must distinguish between the process of leadership and any process
that involves elements of leadership along with deceit, usurpation,
or coercion. Hitler used these means to attain political leadership.
Hitler obtained legitimate authority through legal election into a
strained and maneuverable parliamentary system. He then used
quasi-legal and directly illegal means to take complete control of
the state. In this way, Hitler shifted his position from the legally
elected chancellor of Germany to Fuhrer of Germany and overlord of
the illegally occupied territories of the German Reich. He was the
freely chosen leader only for the Nazis. He was also a leader to a
slightly larger number of willing German followers who were not
active members of the Nazi party, and a number of traitors and
Quislings in the imperial and colonial territories of the Third Reich.
Hitler was not one of those leaders who "showed great promise as
leaders, but somewhere along the line either lost sight of, or
changed their vision and objectives." His vision and objectives were
clear from the beginning. His leadership style and methods were clear
from the first.
Hitler's first major political visibility came because of an
attempted coup d'etat. Despite the laughable name, the Beer Hall
Putsch of 1923 was not a comic incident in a German operetta. These
were not university students drinking and dueling in the background
with Hitler in Mario Lanza's role as "The Student Prince." Armed
thugs and criminals tried to take control of the state by violent
insurrection. Hitler dictated his "vision and objectives" while
serving the prison sentence that followed.
The ideas articulated in Mein Kampf represent the carefully developed
and long-held ideology of a sociopath. Hitler had already formed this
ideology by 1923. It is hard to imagine a crucial moment between the
armistice of 1918 and the Putsch of 1923 when Hitler "lost sight of,
or changed [his] vision and objectives."
The terrible outcome of Hitler's leadership was rooted in the process.
In contrast, the historical Jesus was an excellent process leader.
His leadership was accepted and welcomed by the small community that
gathered around him during his short but effective ministry.
To understand how Jesus could be a successful process leader and
still suffer the death he met, we must remember that Jesus was not
acting in a modern democracy. The earthly Jesus was the son of
working-class parents in an occupied province of Rome. Jesus belonged
to a conquered people. Jesus's people no longer had a nation of their
own. Rather, he was born in a country ruled by client kings and
provincial governors.
The society into which Jesus was born was socially stratified to a
degree inconceivable in a Western democracy. The Roman emperor was
the distant head of a great military power. His local agents were
brutal and ruthless, often corrupt. Even when they were honest within
their context, honesty did not include tending to the rights of
anyone other than Roman citizens. Natives had no rights. They were
subjects, but not citizens, of imperial Rome. Their once-independent
nations, or, more accurately, independent monarchies, had effectively
become Roman estates, farmed and taxed to support Rome. Any benefits
or opportunities given to locals were calculated to yield the
greatest return to Rome. These benefits would be paid in whatever
currency Rome wanted -- produce, slaves, or commerce. In great part,
Pax Romana was a commercial peace, and Roman peace was enforced as a
benefit to Rome. If it happened to serve the needs of the subjected
territories, so be it.
When Jesus said, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword,"
(Matthew 10:34) he was not preaching armed insurrection, but
something far more dangerous to the Roman Empire. He was preaching a
political and social order based on what he saw as God's law. As John
Dominic Crossan put it in his book, Who Is Jesus?, this was the order
that would prevail if God were directly in charge rather than Caesar.
The Lord's Prayer given by Jesus in Matthew 6:10 is a radical social
challenge. It calls on Jesus's followers to establish God's kingdom:
"your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Jesus spoke often of God's law. God's law demands equality before
God. Establishing God's kingdom on earth - "your kingdom come" -
requires establishing justice. The satrapies, territories, provinces,
and client states of imperial Rome were inherently unjust. To call
for God's kingdom and the requisite justice that this demands
necessarily proposes limits on imperial authority. This made Jesus a
political radical as well as a religious radial.
Without developing the entire argument, the historical Jesus - Jesus
the leader - was not executed for religious heresy. Even though he
offended some religious authorities in occupied Judea, his real
affront was to imperial Rome. Jesus was executed by crucifixion, a
death imposed on bandits and political rebels. The Romans generally
imposed crucifixion on lower-class subjects. This especially includes
subjects or slaves who attempted to rise above their station. This
was not a Judean death, and this death was not imposed for religious
heresy. Pontius Pilate was not a benign governor who turned Jesus
over to the religious authorities for execution. The historical
Pilate was a ruthless tyrant. Pilate's soldiers executed Jesus. This
would have required Pilate's supervision and direct command.
Pilate "had Jesus flogged, handed him over to be crucified," (Matthew
27:26). It was to Roman soldiers that Pilate handed Jesus. The
crucifixion accounts show that Roman soldiers took charge of Jesus,
crucified him, and guarded the proceedings just as they managed all
the other crucifixions in the imperial Roman province of Judea. The
crucifixion of Jesus between two bandits took place according to
Roman law for reasons established by Roman imperial policy.
Jesus was not executed because he failed at the leadership process.
Rather, he was executed because he was a successful leader who
attracted voluntary followers in an environment where this posed a
threat to established imperial authority.
Whether Jesus was "a fantastic outcome leader" requires us to
consider a wide range of issues. If we see the crucifixion and
resurrection as the central outcome of Jesus's ministry, then this
has nothing to do with Jesus's leadership. This outcome depends on
messianic prophecy and the fulfillment of a divine role. This is not
leadership, but ordination.
If we see the formal Christian church as the outcome of Jesus's
ministry, we can only offer a mixed score. It is not clear that any
church can truly be labeled the outcome of Jesus's ministry.
Modern Christian churches all trace their lineage back to Paul, a man
who never met the living Jesus. Paul did not share Jesus's ministry
in Judea. Rather, he met a vision of the risen Christ. It is
important to note that Paul has nearly nothing to say about Jesus the
leader, the historical Jesus. Rather, Paul preaches "Christ
crucified," (1 Corinthians 1:23). Paul is a post-Jesus apostle who
preaches a vision of the risen Christ.
Paul never met Jesus. Neither did the four evangelists. The gospels
that come before Paul's letters in the Bible were written after Paul
wrote. The way the gospels were written has as much to do with the
Pauline and post-Pauline church as it does with Jesus's direct
leadership.
Nevertheless, Jesus's work as a leader did have an outcome. He left
behind him a vigorous and enthusiastic following. He set an example
and promulgated ideas that have endured for centuries. This is true
despite the fact that the church named for Jesus was absorbed into
imperial Rome, and corrupted as a tool of state power. This is true
despite the fact that many Christian churches after Rome
disintegrated have served as the tools of power and worldly concern.
This is not Jesus's fault, nor is it the outcome of his leadership.
Jesus the leader - as distinct from Jesus the Christ - left a rich
heritage that survives still. This Jesus succeeded, not because he
was a poor process leader, but because his process leadership was a
serious and deep as it was threatening to imperial Rome.
In discussing these issues, I specifically restrict my comments to
Jesus the leader. This is not the place to discuss theological
issues, and I deliberately offer no comments on the events
surrounding or following Jesus's execution by Pontius Pilate's Roman
soldiers. My comments on Paul and the post-Pauline church involve
matters of historical record. This record is distinct from any
theological or historical discussion of Jesus as Christ.
In commenting on leadership process and outcome, it is important to
remember that leadership process is always embedded in time and
place. It is a transaction among leaders and followers. Since leaders
and their followers are located in history, we must always look to
historical circumstance to analyze and understand leadership process
and leadership outcomes.
In this, Hitler failed on leadership process and outcome both. In
contrast, Jesus did supremely well as a process leader. He also
succeeded in that part of the outcome for which he can truly he held
responsible. For the rest, Jesus cannot be blamed for the way the
fallible human beings have exercised free will to distort his message.
Let us look closely to history before we judge any leader.
Best regards,
--
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management
Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University