Bandy, Spirited Leadership

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Thomas G. Bandy, Spirited Leadership: Empowering People to do What Really Matters. Chalice Press, 2008.

Also featured, companion volume: Bandy, Christian Chaos

Referenced in:

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

The word “empowerment” is used often in leadership literature today. Many resources hint at it, or provide a chapter or two at best. Thom Bandy has developed the concept thoroughly. The two volumes listed here actually build on each other. Spirited Leadership, while very helpful for churches, is addressed to all corporate leaders. Christian Chaos was written about ten years earlier and covers the same concepts with a sole focus on churches. Both describe the streamlined, team-based organizational model. Where you start in your own reading depends on how you are wired. If you like more pragmatic, step-by-step guidebooks, start with Christian Chaos and then move to Spirited Leadership to delve deeper into the theoretical underpinnings. If you like the mental “big picture” before the specifics, start with the more refined treatment, Spirited Leadership and then go to Christian Chaos to see how the principles translate into congregations. Expect considerable overlap between the volumes.

Spirited Leadership targets both corporate and congregational leaders, so the language is less “Church-ese,” but it is must reading to understand the “simple complexity” of empowerment. Many who gravitate toward empowerment are attracted to the freedom and simplicity of missionaries (not “members”) being unleashed to fulfill their kingdom-driven visions according to their gifts. Who is not refreshed by such a picture? Those who participate in such a church usually experience it as a lighter, simpler, trust-filled environment. It is meant that way. But at the leadership level, it is a bit more complex. Creating a culture of empowerment and sustaining the momentum requires a special kind of design. Certainly this does not refer to a bureaucratic or machine-like organizational system, but it is carefully designed nonetheless. The opening chapters of Spirited Leadership discuss the essential components of this design.

Part One, “First Things First,” discusses the missional mindset, the foundation of trust, policy governance, boundary thinking, and basic structures that form the belief systems of an empowering model. Here one will find the concepts common to all literature on empowerment, but Bandy expresses some of them more effectively. For example, his chapter on “Boundary Thinking” counters the notion of “permission-giving” (e.g. Bandy’s earlier work, Christian Chaos and Bill Easum, Unfreezing Moves). To be fair, “permission-giving” emerges from the same missional DNA, seeking to unleash members through a predisposition toward approving anything that fits the mission and values of the congregation. Bandy’s caveat is that this still conveys that ministry teams must stand in line to get permission from the “management.” He believes that in a servant-empowering congregation, the “management” does not care what leaders and teams do, and do not give or withhold permission. Instead, they care about what teams do not do. “To protect those boundaries, management will identify key, strategic, executive limitations on the actions of team leaders. They can do anything, but they cannot do these things.” (43) He argues that these kinds of negative proscriptions are actually more freeing. This section also includes a chapter on “Basic Structures,” a helpful grid that explains the place and purpose of each component of the empowering model.

Part Two discusses the essential vehicles of empowerment – consensus building and ministry teams. Part Three describes how boards (elders) function in an empowering system. Part Four offers helpful guidelines on the optimal operation of ministry teams.

Bandy’s other volume, Christian Chaos, conveys his best on the same topic, but ten years earlier. The value is its sole focus on churches, and the emphasis on cell groups and teams as the primary forms through which empowerment is expressed. Some valuable pieces unique to this work are listed below:

Chapter four – “Addressing Discontent in Congregational Life,” and “The Role of the Senior Pastor.”
Chapter five – “Advice for the Small Church or Any-Sized Church.” One will appreciate Bandy’s candor that small churches often do not have the critical mass to create all the systems necessary for the empowerment model. (See the Ministry Resource Guide on Small Churches)
Part III, Chapters 6 – 10 – Cell Groups, Mission Teams P.A.L.S. (Prayer, Activity, Learning, and Sharing)

These two books are Bandy’s best on empowerment. Some also find good cross-pollination with Bandy’s Moving Off the Map and Kicking Habits, as well as Bill Easum’s Growing Spiritual Redwoods and Unfreezing Moves. These and others are featured in the resource guide on the Easum/Bandy model.

From the Publisher

Acclaimed author and consultant Tom Bandy seeks to create a new dynamic for leadership in the new century—a dynamic based on flexible teams, spirited leadership, and management aimed at training and empowering leaders. He calls for organizational action to be centered around teams that are given freedom to act within the corporate trust and the boundaries that identify the heartburst of the company.

Spirited Leadership identifies the nature of modern business and the leadership organization needed to keep it flexible, dynamic, and mission market centered. It challenges churches and businesses to unleash the power of their trained leaders in teams focused on the market by having a small management team focused on leader development, not on product or program development.

Challenging boards to set “sacred boundaries” and let the management and teams go free to respond quickly and creatively to market changes, Spirited Leadership seeks to create an environment in which team members gain meaning and fulfill their calling.

About the Author

Thomas G. Bandy is a leadership mentor and consultant for faith-based organizations. He is the author of more than fourteen books and numerous articles, including Why Should I Believe in You? (Abingdon Press) and Talisman: Global Positioning for the Soul (Chalice Press). He has been a pastor, teacher, lecturer in philosophical theology, and national denominational leader in the United States and Canada. he is now an internationally known workshop and conference leader. Bandy is the president of Easum, Bandy & Associates, with an organizational mission to “guide Christian leaders for ancient mission in the contemporary world.”

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Church Leadership and Renewal, Diagnostic Approaches, Empowerment