I am a part of a church plant movement that is launching here in Rome Georgia in January of 2009 called Connect Rome. Our mission and vision is to create opportunities where it is simple for people to connect to God and each other. Josh Roberts is our lead pastor.
I just finished reading an Article at Motivation-tools.com about Visionary Leadership. One good part I’ll share is the definition of Visionary Leadership vs. Standard Leadership.
Below are the definitions taken from the website.
Visionary Leadership increases efficiency by moving decision-making responsibility to the frontline. Efficiency is achieved with limited supervision. To make frontline responsibility effective, leadership must give workers opportunity to develop quality decision-making skills and learn to trust them. Wal-Mart stores use visionary leadership.
Standard leadership assumes employees to be robots and do as they are told. This is based on man’s natural instinct that only leadership is capable of making quality decisions. This is known as command-and-control leadership. Low efficiency is caused by the disconnect between management and the frontline. Management is busy dealing with problems that affect them while ignoring problems that affect the frontline. Front line problems are only dealt with when they explode into a major problem. K-Mart stores use standard leadership.
We have all been a part of an organization that falls under the Standard Leadership umbrella. It is easy to get worn out or burned out quickly when you are not allowed the freedom to lead in the areas you excel. I tend to think that is the reason why Visionary Leadership has gained so much ground in the last few years. People in leadership positions are starting to catch on to the fact that they can be more efficient in leading their organization by stepping back and allowing the leaders they have raised up to actually lead.
One thing we hope to do and do well at Connect Rome is to constantly be developing new Visionary Leaders who can be making decisions for the kingdom right on the frontline. From our Children’s Ministry, our Sunday Morning Programming Team, our Creative Teams, or even our Parking Teams, we hope to raise up men and women who are keenly aware that they are able to and capable of leading people effectively for the kingdom.
Keep a steady eye out on the Connect Rome website. It is pretty plain right now, but it should develop a new look in the next month or two and it will be jammed packed with all the information you’ll need about who we are, our vision, where we’ll be meeting and when, etc. You can also check back HERE at my blog or Josh Roberts’ Blog to stay updated.
