Is Anchored Leadership An Oxymoron?

Anchored Leadership.  It sounds like a mixed metaphor, doesn’t it?  Anchors are all about making sure something doesn’t move.  Leadership is all about movement. How can the two go together?

Perhaps it is an oxymoron, but it captures the paradox of leadership.  A leader is one who goes before others, influencing the direction, finding ways around obstacles, encouraging the weary, locating better paths for sore feet.  The leader isn’t alone and is helped by the entire group. However, leadership always implies stepping out in front — movement, change, and momentum.

But leaders become (or perhaps more accurately, remain) leaders mainly because they have their eyes fixed on a particular goal they can convince followers to value and pursue.  Through the inevitable difficulties of the journey, followers will continually test (1) whether the goal truly is worth pursuing, and (2) whether the leader’s words and actions credibly affirm the worth of the goal.

The “fixed” part of leadership – the part that doesn’t move – must be the ultimate goal or end.  And the leader will succeed or fail based on whether her or his life communicates the importance of the goal.  The successful leader must be “anchored” to ensure that those following keep moving.

Many well-intentioned and highly-talented leaders have been shipwrecked for want of an adequate anchor.  Sometimes the direction toward which the leader heads is flawed, trivial, uninspiring, or even evil. In such cases, coercion or bribery may be used for a time to keep followers moving.  But in time the leader will be abandoned, the goal having been found wanting.

Sometimes, the leader believes no real ultimate direction need be pursued.  Rather the most expedient path is chosen which makes the majority of followers happy at any given moment.  Over time, this strategy will lose the interest of followers as well.

And then there are times when the leader’s words and actions just don’t sync up with the stated goal.  The call to a noble end sounds hollow when advocated by the ignoble. Followers will no longer make an effort to fall in step with such a leader.

I won’t try to hide my bias.  I believe that the only goals worth pursuing are those that reflect the true end of Creation.  That end, described in Scripture, is a world under the wise and loving rule of Jesus, God’s Son.  And for a leader to be truly successful, he or she must anchor goals, words, actions, values, and character to the already but not yet Kingdom of God.

Leading, whether it be in a construction firm, a bank, a farming operation, a retail store, or a government office must be anchored.  And the anchor must be fixed to Christ, the solid rock!