Lead­er­ship is a com­plex and multi-​​dimensional phe­nom­e­non. While the mis­sional par­a­digm is not leader-centric—rather, “every dis­ci­ple is to be an agent of the King­dom of God” (Hirsch, “Defin­ing Missional”)—leadership is nev­er­the­less indis­pens­able to liv­ing out the call­ing of the church. Those giv­ing direc­tion to the church and its mis­sion need to attend to many aspects of life simul­ta­ne­ously, a real­ity that needs to be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion as we sup­port and develop leaders.A super­fi­cially under­stood and unbal­anced approach to Chris­t­ian mis­sion could result in unsat­is­fy­ing, unsus­tain­able and inef­fec­tive activism. Effec­tive, sus­tain­able mis­sion is pos­si­ble only where we honor the needs and demands of both the inner life and the outer world of the leader as well as the con­text in which he or she operates.

The mis­sional and spir­i­tual for­ma­tion move­ments, two major man­i­fes­ta­tions of the work of the Spirit in North Amer­i­can Protes­tantism in the past decade, have devel­oped against the back­drop of a renewed appre­ci­a­tion for the role of com­mu­nity and the need for spir­i­tual sus­te­nance. Inte­grat­ing the prac­tices of spir­i­tual for­ma­tion with a mis­sional focus holds the promise of facil­i­tat­ing the devel­op­ment of spir­i­tu­ally mature and prop­erly focused leaders.

While action and con­tem­pla­tion are each demand­ing in their own right, com­bin­ing and inte­grat­ing them are even more chal­leng­ing. Robert Fryling points out that while there is an abun­dance of books that focus on either the exter­nal orga­ni­za­tional prin­ci­ples for suc­cess or inter­nal spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines, there is a dearth of lead­er­ship mate­r­ial in which they inter­sect and inform each other (Fryling,The Lead­er­ship Ellipse, 91–97). It is encour­ag­ing to note that sev­eral recent ini­tia­tives are draw­ing together action, con­tem­pla­tion, and com­mu­nity, includ­ing the Mis­sional Order, estab­lished for the pur­pose of “help­ing to fos­ter con­tem­pla­tive mis­sional com­mu­ni­ties” (“What Is a Mis­sional Order,” http://​mis​sion​alorder​.com/​a​b​o​ut/) and Richard Rohr’s Cen­ter for Action and Con­tem­pla­tion. Car­o­line Osgood’s recent DMin the­sis, “Inten­tional Mis­sional Engage­ment as a Nec­es­sary Dis­ci­pline for Spir­i­tual For­ma­tion”, grants for­mal recog­ni­tion to the impor­tance of inte­grat­ing these aspects.

The Inte­gral Model, an inter-​​disciplinary, multi-​​level inter­pre­ta­tional frame­work, may help us make sense of the com­plex and com­pre­hen­sive chal­lenge of mis­sional lead­er­ship devel­op­ment. The model arises from the real­iza­tion that there are numer­ous inter­re­lated dimen­sions to the leader and his or her con­text and presents a way of view­ing lead­er­ship that can help us rec­og­nize and honor the crit­i­cal dimen­sions of all human inter­ac­tion and activ­ity. For the pur­pose of this arti­cle, we will look at only one aspect—the quadrants—of the model termed AQAL (All Quad­rants, All Levels).

AQAL pos­tu­lates two fun­da­men­tal ori­en­ta­tions; the inte­rior (or sub­jec­tive) and exte­rior (or objec­tive), as well as two modal­i­ties; the indi­vid­ual (or sin­gu­lar) and col­lec­tive (or plural), wherein human inter­ac­tion takes place. By plot­ting the ori­en­ta­tions as the X axis and the modal­i­ties as the Y axis, four fields are formed (see dia­gram):
1. Indi­vid­ual inte­rior: the exis­ten­tial or inten­tional dimen­sion
2. Indi­vid­ual exte­rior: the behav­ioral dimen­sion
3. Col­lec­tive inte­rior: the cul­tural dimen­sion
4. Col­lec­tive exte­rior: the social dimension

Every per­son and social entity has their being in these four ‘worlds.’ The exte­rior quad­rants tend toward func­tion­al­ity (what do I or what does some­one or some­thing else do?) and lend them­selves to empir­i­cal obser­va­tion. The inte­rior quad­rants focus on inter­pre­ta­tion (what do I or what does some­one or some­thing else mean?). The indi­vid­ual or sin­gu­lar per­spec­tive looks at the per­son or phe­nom­e­non in and of itself, while the col­lec­tive or plural per­spec­tive looks at the per­son or phe­nom­e­non as it par­tic­i­pates in its con­texts and networks.

The exis­ten­tial dimen­sion, the “being” of the leader, must be nur­tured. Effec­tive lead­ers model the behav­iour they desire of oth­ers. In the let­ter to the Corinthi­ans Paul exhorts his audi­ence to “fol­low my exam­ple as I fol­low the exam­ple of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1) and in a let­ter to Tim­o­thy he writes, “Set an exam­ple for the believ­ers in speech, in con­duct, in love, in faith and in purity.… Watch your life and doc­trine closely. Per­se­vere in them, because if you do, you will save both your­self and your hear­ers.” (I Tim. 4: 12, 16 TNIV). Robert Quinn sug­gests that, “one key to suc­cess­ful lead­er­ship is con­tin­u­ous per­sonal change. Per­sonal change is a reflec­tion of our inner growth and empow­er­ment. Empow­ered lead­ers are the only ones who can induce real change [in orga­ni­za­tions, cul­tures, and other peo­ple]. By hav­ing the courage to change them­selves, they model the behav­ior they are ask­ing of oth­ers” (Deep Change, 34).

It is there­fore impor­tant that Chris­t­ian lead­ers develop and nur­ture the inte­rior dimen­sion of their life by main­tain­ing a strong per­sonal rela­tion­ship with God so that the char­ac­ter, motives, and atti­tude of Christ can be formed in them. Con­tem­pla­tive prac­tices such as soli­tude, retreats, med­i­ta­tive prayer, jour­nal­ing, exa­men, and lec­tio div­ina facil­i­tate Chris­t­ian spir­i­tual for­ma­tion in com­bi­na­tion with ongo­ing the­o­log­i­cal study and dis­cus­sion. In addi­tion to spir­i­tual for­ma­tion, lead­ers can ben­e­fit from the self-​​insight pro­vided by diag­nos­tic sys­tems that mea­sure emo­tional intel­li­gence, psy­cho­log­i­cal type and spir­i­tual gifts. Ther­a­peu­tic coun­sel­ing, spir­i­tual direc­tion, and spir­i­tual friend­ship help lead­ers to iden­tify and deal with prob­lem areas and imbal­ances, thereby assist­ing with per­sonal as well as spir­i­tual growth and change. While the pres­sures of lead­er­ship are often felt most in the func­tional areas, lead­ers must nur­ture their spir­i­tual lives if they are to be effec­tive and remain faith­ful with respect to God’s mission.

It is obvi­ous that the “exter­nal” lives of lead­ers, their behav­iors and skills, mat­ter. Paul’s list of cri­te­ria for elders and dea­cons includes a num­ber of behav­ioural cri­te­ria, namely “Over­seers [are] to be above reproach, faith­ful to their spouse, tem­per­ate, self-​​controlled, respectable, hos­pitable, able to teach, not given to drunk­en­ness, not vio­lent but gen­tle, not quar­rel­some, not a lover of money…. [They] must also have a good rep­u­ta­tion with out­siders…” (I Tim. 3: 2–3, 7 TNIV).

Lead­er­ship requires all encom­pass­ing skills, from vision­ary plan­ning to com­mu­ni­cat­ing the vision, from pol­icy devel­op­ment to devel­op­ing peo­ple, from per­sonal man­age­ment to man­ag­ing meet­ings, from con­flict res­o­lu­tion to resolv­ing bud­gets, from enlist­ment skills to skill­ful resource deploy­ment, and much more. No mat­ter with what degree of pro­fi­ciency peo­ple enter lead­er­ship roles, these abil­i­ties can always be improved through train­ing. Fail­ure and feed­back alert us to areas where devel­op­ment may be needed. Job per­for­mance reviews, solicited eval­u­a­tion, 360-​​Degree and other feed­back instru­ments as well as inci­dent post-​​mortems (“What went wrong? How can we do bet­ter?) help deter­mine train­ing needs. Prac­tic­ing, and debrief­ing a new skill with a coach or men­tor enhance the effi­cacy of train­ing programs.

Lead­ers also need to dis­cern and engage the “inner life” of soci­eties and groups. They need to be able to iden­tify cul­tural pat­terns and val­ues that should be mod­er­ated or devel­oped in the host cul­ture or tar­get group, take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties to do so and respond strate­gi­cally to trou­ble areas. With­out this abil­ity, we may be doing lit­tle more than try­ing to arrange chairs for an event we don’t under­stand. Jesus asked the lead­ers of Israel, “Can you not dis­cern the signs of the times?” (Matt. 16:3 KJV). Chris­t­ian lead­ers must, at the same time, be aware of their cul­tural pro­cliv­i­ties and the way in which lead­er­ship needs to be exer­cised in order to shape cul­ture in accor­dance with the gospel. The­o­log­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal frame­works can help us dis­cern the world­view and spirit of the times. Sound the­o­log­i­cal train­ing will equip us to present and live a vision con­gru­ent with God’s Kingdom.

Finally, lead­er­ship seeks to influ­ence social activ­i­ties, arrange­ments, con­structs and rela­tion­ships. “A leader with­out a social con­text sim­ply can­not be a leader. This social con­text is multi-​​levelled, rang­ing from rela­tion­ships with indi­vid­u­als to teams, com­mit­tees, orga­ni­za­tions, and so forth,” writes Day and Har­ri­son (“Mul­ti­level, Identity-​​based Approach to Lead­er­ship”). Lead­ers par­tic­i­pate in the “outer life” of the com­mu­nity, com­prised of the social dimen­sion with its roles, rela­tion­ships, orga­ni­za­tions, sys­tems, pol­i­tics, and power dynam­ics. Much of the books of Acts con­cern the Apos­tle Paul’s work in this realm and his let­ters (by them­selves a social act) abound with exam­ples of how he exer­cised his lead­er­ship in the com­mu­nity. “We dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own chil­dren, encour­ag­ing, com­fort­ing and urg­ing you to live lives wor­thy of God,” he wrote to the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans (I Thess. 2: 11–12 TNIV). Since a person’s influ­ence in the social (exter­nal col­lec­tive) is what peo­ple most asso­ciate with lead­er­ship, it is not sur­pris­ing that the major­ity of books focus on this dimension.

Of course, these fields are not self-​​contained or inde­pen­dent. They con­sti­tute dif­fer­ent aspects of a greater whole so that their mem­branes are porous and the dif­fer­ent fields are inter­con­nected. How­ever, it is easy for us to become “one-​​sided” as lead­ers. As I work with pas­tors and Chris­t­ian lead­ers and reflect on my own devel­op­ment, I see how easy it is to become immersed in one aspect of real­ity or facet of life to the neglect of oth­ers. This is the way of growth for many of us—not a straight line but a zigzag move­ment; though at this point in my life, it seems that I need to zig and zag at the same time, pay­ing atten­tion to mul­ti­ple aspects of life simultaneously.

The Mis­sio Dei jour­nal seeks to be mis­sional, con­tex­tual, and inte­gra­tive. This should also be the goal of Chris­t­ian lead­ers and those who are involved in their devel­op­ment. The Inte­gral Model holds promise for a con­tex­tual and inte­gra­tive approach to our mis­sional call, our lead­er­ship voca­tion and the devel­op­ment of mis­sional lead­ers. We must attend to the whole per­son of the leader, his or her inner well-​​being and devel­op­ment, behav­iour and com­pe­ten­cies, dis­cern­ment of cul­ture, and ful­fill­ment of social roles, thereby pro­mot­ing the bal­ance needed for sus­tain­ing both the per­son and work of the Chris­t­ian leader.

Bib­li­og­ra­phy

• Day, David V. and Michelle M. Har­ri­son. “A Mul­ti­level, Identity-​​Based Approach to Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment.” Human Resource Man­age­ment Review 17, no. 4 (2007): 360–373.
• Edwards,Mark.“Through AQAL Eyes.“http://​www​.inte​gral​world​.net/​e​d​w​a​r​d​s​5​.​h​tml
• Fryling, Robert A. The Lead­er­ship Ellipse: Shap­ing How We Lead by Who We Are. Down­ers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009. Kin­dle eBook.
• Hirsch, Alan. “Defin­ing Mis­sional.”
  Lead​er​shipJour​nal​.net (Decem­ber 12, 2008). Repr. from Chris­tian­ity Today. http://​www​.chris​tian​i​ty​to​day​.com/​l​e​/​c​o​m​m​u​n​i​t​y​l​i​f​e​/​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​m​/​1​7​.​2​0​.​h​t​m​l​?​g​c​l​i​d​=​C​P​3​A​n​a​H​6​9​a​Q​C​F​U​U​U​K​g​o​d​p​A​M​Q​i​g​&​a​m​p​;​s​t​a​r​t​=​1​.​A​c​c​e​s​sed Octo­ber 28, 2010.
• Mis­sional Order. http://​mis​sion​alorder​.com/​a​b​o​u​t​/​w​h​a​t​-​i​s​-​a​-​m​i​s​s​i​o​n​a​l​-​o​r​der.Accessed Octo­ber 22, 2010.
• Osgood, Chris­tine B. “Inten­tional Mis­sional Engage­ment as a Nec­es­sary Dis­ci­pline for Spir­i­tual For­ma­tion.” DMin the­sis, Bethel Sem­i­nary, 2010.
• Quinn, Robert. Deep Change: Dis­cov­er­ing the Leader within. San Fran­cisco: Jossey-​​Bass, 1996.
• Wilber, Ken.The Kos­mos Tril­ogy, Vol. II (Excerpts). Boston, MA: Shamb­hala Pub­li­ca­tions, 2003. http://​wilber​.shamb​hala​.com/​h​t​m​l​/​b​o​o​k​s​/​k​o​s​m​o​s​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​c​fm/
• Wilber, Ken. Inte­gral Spir­i­tu­al­ity: A Star­tling New Role for Reli­gion in the Mod­ern and Post­mod­ern World. Boston, MA: Shamb­hala Pub­li­ca­tions, 2007.