The herd mentality of leadership …

When Solomon wrote, “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new,” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), I wonder if he was thinking specifically of church leaders.

This comes to mind as I just finished reading a new blog post from a popular pastor who also consults with other churches. The content of the blog post was the same thing you can find in dozens of blog posts written for church leaders. There was nothing new in it.

Church leaders have one of the worst “herd mentalities” of any key groups I watch.

If you follow what many church leaders do, you’ll often see they read the same books, go to the same conferences, hang out in the same circles, follow the same “star” pastors, thus they have the same influences. They pass around the same ideas so many of them are preaching on the same thing. Their writing takes up the same subjects with nearly the same content. They try the same programs because they use the same ideas.

In spite of all the hype around creativity and innovation among many of these leaders, most of them are running in the middle of a herd doing much of the same thing the rest of the herd is.

One reason is the focus on mentoring over discipling. By constantly learning from each other how to be like each other, they’re producing a herd of themselves. A greater focus on advanced discipling would put a focus on individually becoming increasingly like Jesus Christ, which would result in a greater differentiation, innovation, and creativity as each one broadens their uniqueness in the likeness of Christ.

It’s easier to simply share ideas and regurgitate what everyone else is doing. It’s much harder to maintain personal study and spiritual development that consistently generates greater insights that, in turn, feed creativity and innovation. That’s why most leaders huddle with the herd rather than growing to the front.

Which are you doing?

Scotty