Leadership

As we were packing on Monday before travelling down to Somerset the news came through that Lady Thatcher had died at The Ritz hotel in London.  I ran downstairs and turned on the telly catching the opening of the one o’clock news and the start of the many tributes and critiques which we have heard and seen this week.

The reaction to her death has been interesting to say the least.  She was the Prime Minister of my early adult years. Indeed the election at which she became Prime Minister in 1979 was the first one in which I could vote.  My family owned its own business and we lived in the south of Britain so Mrs T was something of a hero to my parents and grandparents and the 80’s for us seemed like a ‘boom’ time. 

There are so many ‘myths’ about Baroness Thatcher and it’s hard to know which ones to believe.  Ken Clark, who served along side her, said in a TV interview this week that she was very different from the media image presented about her.  Perhaps we need to refrain from too quick an analysis and take the ‘long view’.

Whatever we think of Mrs Thatcher she has her place in twentieth century history as one of its most significant leaders. 

Leadership can be defined in many different ways and needs many different qualities.  A leader needs vision and courage, has to have insight and the ability to ‘stay the course’ even in the loneliest of moments.  I guess the Baroness knew a thing or two about this kind of leadership.

Yet, in my view, leadership also involves the ability to listen and the willingness to learn from one’s mistakes.  Now that’s the hard bit for any leader.  John Humphreys or Jeremy Paxman would eat any political leader alive if they admitted too often that mistakes have been made.  Yet we all make them and one of the best bits of our humanity is that often mistakes, once we learn from them, make us into far better people.  That’s the theme of the tome the AFC Book Group is currently reading (Falling Upwards by Father Richard Rohr).

An American preacher on New York’s 5^th Avenue was going through domestic difficulty at home and would regularly give updates of this marital struggle to his church Sunday by Sunday.  During that period the congregation swelled to unprecedented proportions.  Apparently they loved hearing about their minister’s mistakes!

Now I’m not for one moment saying that example gives us a good role model. A far better one might be the humility with which Justin Welby took up his position in Canterbury Cathedral last month.  Standing at the great West Door and being asked ‘Who are you?’ he responded by saying he was a disciple in need of God’s grace.  Later in March he was interviewed on Songs of Praise and said ‘of course I will make many mistakes, I just hope and pray they won’t be on the really big issues’. 

The Bible doesn’t really go in for hagiography – the art of writing an uncritical biography in a near reverential tone.  Even Israel’s greatest leader and King, David, is given an honest account as his mistakes are all too painfully recorded during his days of adultery.

No leader is ever perfect – nor should we expect them to be.

For me ‘collegiate leadership’ is a great blessing and strength.  Parliament models it in the Cabinet system of government and the rigorous passage of a Bill through its various stages in both Commons and Lords.  Such a system is the benefit of living in a democracy rather than a dictatorship.

And we, especially in Free Churches like AFC, also have this kind of leadership structure.  The minister SERVES alongside the Elders and Church Meeting as TOGETHER we seek the mind of Christ.  One of my tasks is to seek to bring vision and encouragement but that is always done in the realisation that any ideas I have will be refined and developed as they go through Elders and Church Meeting; and I’m truly grateful for that.

Our country owes a debt of gratitude to all its Prime Ministers and the service they have given our nation.  We know they have all made mistakes yet I sense every one of them gave of their very best in the democratic system we value.  Their office of national leadership merits our ongoing prayers.

With best wishes,

Ian