Leadership literature has traditionally been about the actions of the one person at the top of an organisation’s hierarchy. Within the context of churches, it has largely been about how the senior pastor of a megachurch retreats to the mountain to get his blazing vision of the church’s preferred future, then communicates it to his team and the rest of the church in a compelling manner, creating alignment and leading the people into the promised land.
A new style of leadership – distributed leadership – has been emerging to match the movement from bureaucratic organisational structures to flatter structures, according to Deborah Ancona and Elaine Backman in a recent Harvard Business Review blog post. Leadership functions are being spread across multiple individuals and teams, leadership can be taken on by people not in formal leadership roles, and change can be driven from the bottom up.
From my observations, I would say that similar changes have been happening within large churches. While someone retains the job of overall leader, leadership of successful churches is now predominantly done in teams, and successful churches practise leadership at every level, with every member being encouraged and equipped to exercise initiative and leadership within his or her sphere of influence.