When it comes to leadership in ministry (particularly among missionaries), one sees a few types of leaders.
On the one hand, you have the strategist who genuine understands the culture (s)he serves and grasps the interaction between missiology and theology. On the other hand, you have the administrator, who can “do” a lot of things. His or her capacity to handle emails and paperwork impresses everyone. Of course, they would call themselves themselves “strategists.”
I came across a post by farnamstreetblog.com that calls the second type of leader a “fragilista.” It serves as a good warning to ministry leaders as well as the those that select leaders. It’s quite easy to
[The fragilista] defaults to thinking that what he doesn’t see is not there, or what he does not understand does not exist. At the core, he tends to mistake the unknown for the nonexistent.
Fragilistas are naive rationalists.
The writer illustrates how a fragilista works.
Fragilistas are everywhere.
They are the doctors who intervene too much in the body’s natural ability to heal, prescribing powerful medications with small benefit and possibly severe side effects.
There is the management fragilista who: (1) introduces a bureaucratic solution to what is really a people problem; (2) manages by best-seller; (3) seeks refuge in the false security of best-practices; (4) fails to come up with reasonable benchmarks for judging performance of solutions; (5) does everything and thus does nothing; etc.
The post reminds us that every decision has countless unforeseen consequences. We never just change one thing. So, the writer offers some advice, including:
The point isn’t to avoid risk or even intervention but rather to be humble about our knowledge, or lack of it.
To know when we should avoid small, immediate, and visible benefits that introduce the possibility for large (and possibly invisible) side effects. Less is more.
I can’t post everything that’s in the blog, but if you are a leader or select leaders, it may be worth your time to check it out. We fundamentally need strategists, not fragilistas.
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