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Even before he went to Africa Joe Kuhl had a reputation for being a maverick. After all, it took great determination to go against the tide of family expectations to move half way around the world and learn a totally new language.

Joe arrived in northern Nigeria with a clear idea about how to study the Hausa language. He even brought his own language tapes and conversational textbooks. But he soon ran into difficulties with mission leadership. George Wright, the district superintendent, reminded him that the approved language program required that he learn grammar rules and vocabulary.

George was getting tired of iconoclast missionaries who thought they understood how to run a mission the day they stepped off the plane. This Joe guy hadn’t been on the field two weeks and he already wanted to redesign the whole language school. George expected new recruits to fit into the team of experienced missionaries and join the program of the established language school.

George felt his leadership task was to direct his district, while Joe expected leadership to be more encouraging.

The Quandary
Missionaries are people who are not afraid to take bold risks. They often march to a different drummer, and have an entrepreneurial spirit. Missionaries are a delightful yet peculiar people. When it comes to leadership they face a quandary:

• Individualistic missionaries are often called to work under the direction of missionaries or nationals with widely different views of leadership. • Missionaries may be called to lead multi-cultural teams of fellow missionaries and nationals who have radically different expectations of leadership. • Missionaries teach in pastoral training institutions in cultures with dissimilar ideas about the leadership role of the pastor. • The dominant worldwide assumption is that leaders have the responsibility and power to control people. The North American corporate CEO, the South American caudillo, the Asian Confucian elder brother, the Middle-Eastern paternalistic father-figure or the traditional African chief, all fit the model of leadership as power.

• Missionaries in a postmodern culture react against a domineering view of leadership, feeling called to “do their own thing.” They see leadership as a service function with little or no authority.

So here is the quandary. Many post-modern missionaries have a passive view of leadership, while the rest of the world assumes that leadership is power. Yet today’s missionaries are expected to work under leaders and to train leaders in cultures with different hidden assumptions of leadership. Is it possible that both views of leadership are inadequate? Both views of leadership have serious flaws. We need a different understanding of leadership.

A Possible Solution
Leadership is a spiritual gift mentioned in Romans 12:8, but footnotes show that the word might mean to “provide for others” or to “give aid.” The list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:28 uses the word “administration” in some translations, but in others it is translated “guidance” or “those who can get others to work together.”

Here is a tentative definition: Good leadership is the spiritual gift of harmonizing, enhancing and focusing the spiritual gifts of others toward a common vision of the kingdom of God. This definition assumes neither “leader as controller” or “leader as cheerleader.” The model takes the task of the kingdom seriously and assumes that the leader will be proactive and take initiative, while also being an encourager and a developer of people.

I’m hopeful that this model of leadership will allow missionaries to be more effective in multi-cultural settings.

• It brings out the best of the controller and the encourager models while overcoming the weaknesses of both. • It allows missionaries to be proactive, to take initiative and to keep focused on the vision, while working under people with diverse leadership styles. • It has the potential of being a bridge between the dominant modern view of leadership as power and the postmodern passive view of leadership.

• It provides a starting point and a goal for developing leaders in other cultures.

Back in Nigeria, George and Joe were learning to work together. George got to know Joe and appreciate his spiritual gifts while helping him to fit into the vision of the mission in northern Nigeria. Joe began to grasp the bigger picture and how he fit with the rest of the team. George gladly accepted many of Joe’s suggestions for enhancing the language school curriculum, and Joe saw the benefit of studying grammar.

Good leadership is the spiritual gift of harmonizing, enhancing and focusing the spiritual gifts of others toward a common vision of the kingdom of God.

Few things in life are more rewarding than working with missionaries and church leaders of other cultures. I often say I am working with a dream team of mission leadership. I pray that the Lord will continue to show us how to harmonize and enhance the spiritual gifts he has given believers in every culture so that we may be used to fulfill a vision of his worldwide kingdom.

Jim Plueddemann is international director of SIM and professor of intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill.