A thought about leadership...

Unformed and unfinished as always...

It seems to me that leaders, including and especially Christian ones, need to seek out people who disagree with them but are prepared to do so in a constructive, creative and loving way. It is good to have loyal and reliable supporters: but uncritical loyalty is not really loyalty at all. Yes-men are in fact the worst kind of traitors. They isolate leaders from reality. And what is more, if you encourage people to be passively loyal to you in this way, you actually stunt their emotional and personal growth.

It does take enormous maturity and discernment to be able to listen to criticism of course without falling in a heap or just dismissing it. The leader who is always listening to critics will be a mess, just as the leader who never listens to them will be corrupt. But it seems to me that a critic, or a person who annoys you, is almost always telling you something about yourself. I think it is really helpful to ask 'what is it about me that makes this person so annoying to me?' The point is then not to smooth over all the difficulties or to produce a monolithic point of view but to respond with wisdom. And to invite the potential dissident to be a loyal opposition, before things get out of hand, and bridges are burnt....