Phil Cooke

We have a term for some of the elements you note here.  It's called toxic leadership.

Here's an excellent book on the subject that explains and works through how insecure and damaging leaders of this type rise to to power, but more importantly perhaps, what it is about people and organizations that causes us to follow them.

http://www.amazon.com/Allure-Toxic-Leaders-Destructive-Politicians/dp/0195166345

This I found in a review of the book:

"What fascinates her is that people will continue to follow leaders, remain loyal to leaders, and vigorously resist change and challenges to leaders who have clearly violated the leader/follower relationship and abjectly abused their power as leaders to the direct detriment of the people they are leading. When we continue not only to tolerate leaders such as this, but to remain loyal followers (the book is full of examples of just this phenomenon), and when such people fascinate us through the media images they project, and we find them positively alluring, Lipman-Blumen suggests there is something of a deeply psychological nature going on and this is the place where her remarkably penetrating investigation takes off, in the central question of the book: What are the forces that propel followers, again and again, to accept, often favor, and sometimes create, toxic leaders?"

These are valid questions.  I've never read the book, but my interest is piqued.  Admittedly, the answer I most want is as follows:  How do we interact with these leaders and their sycophants productively?

Ideas?  Anyone!

'Cause Phil, I don't think these leaders or their followers know who they are.  In many cases, the rest of us have a bit of trouble figuring it out too!  You know they're a royal pain, but figuring out why can take a while.  Figuring out what to do about it, longer!

There's a sycophant of one of these fruitcake leaders trying to reach me right now. He will claim his call is social, but he'll be trying to manipulate me into revealing information his boss can use for one of his selfish agendas.  The sycophant isn't a bad guy, but he is weak and silly.  If he weren't, he wouldn't be an errand boy for a sociopath.   I wish he and I could be friends, but for that he'd have to have a bit more respect, both for himself and for me.

 These leaders are a nuisance at best, and their followers remind me of some of Shakespeare's more memorable tragic characters.  How do we deal with all this drama?  How do we interact with them in ethical, productive ways?  

Steve Jobs, head of Apple, said something perceptive in the mid-80s: Really good leaders don't flaunt their leadership. Most solid manager/leaders derive from good, qualified mid-level workers who look around when there is a vacuum in decision-making and leadership…and then STEP UP and say, "Alright! That's enough. If no one is gonna do it. I will." I've been at this for 30+ years. Seen it all. More than most. I finally chose to be a leader because the other ridiculous, blathering, toxic idiots who ruined every other Christian media dept around my colleagues and I so screwed it up I finally said, deep into ministry survival mode, "ENOUGH!"

Bette, find another kind of church and be blessed.

Not all Churches are afraid of strong women, but many are.   Get away from those bedwetters!  Find other strong, confident Christian women and the strong, confident men who appreciate them, then make yourself at home. 

Until you do so, you'll be made to feel like a wet dog at a nudist colony picnic at every church function.   That's not the fellowship you deserve.

I usually enjoy your thoughts, but this one sounds like you just came out of a bad experience and you are venting why everyone else sucks.  Hmmmm.  Are we getting the whole story?   

Thanks for being with us at Awaken!  Enjoyed your thoughts!

Great writing – I especially loved your last point. I would give my right arm to be elevated into a position way beyond my abilities – heck thats where you can take the credit for everyone else's great ideas! Who cares if you take the kudos, take the glory, take the pay rise, ….but for heavens sake just make sure you take the great ideas that help your organisation move forward.

Man, does this post hit home. I was recently laid off from a producing position that was a revolving door for others, many of them because they didn't have the "culture" of the church. The leader "in charge" had a direct path to the pastor, who trusted this person implicitly. The leader had no experience, background or education in media but was promoted to Executive Producer for the tv show because they were "faithful", and because they had slowly, eventually gotten rid of the competition. (They were also put in charge of missions, but had never been a missionary or spent significant time on the mission field.) Normal production, distribution and workflow issues were often explained, but one could tell that these ideas and info just rattled around in their brain. Light on, nobody home. They were afraid to admit they didn't know the basics out of insecurity. If you were smarter than them, you were a threat. The sad fact is that this person ran off scores of good, talented people, rarely if ever admitted mistakes, bullied people, worked them to death and pointed to others to cover their backside. Because the pastor trusted (still does) this person completely, he only knows, mostly, what he's told by the leader. Which is the way he likes it; one less ministry to worry about. The media ministry is a train wreck. An expensive one.

This might describe one of your ministry leaders, which is sad. There is so much to do for God these days, and media has proven to be an effective tool when used properly. I like the "Good To Great" analogy: there are some people on the bus in the wrong seat. Get them into the right seat asap. Others can be trained and developed to someday be in another seat. But others shouldn't be on the bus at all. Be nice, but get them off that bus pronto!

every industry has its idiots

either decide to incarnate Christ in the situation or find another place to serve