The Flexible


"Idealism un-tempered by realism often does little to improve the world."

Niccolò Machiavelli (v)


Renald Hennig

The flexibility of Jesus' teaching method has been described in chapter five, "The Communicator". The following excerpts will therefore concentrate on other aspects of his flexibility.

Simon Peter had been an eager, sometimes too eager follower. Jesus had designated him as the future leader, seeing potential and commitment. But also the need for training.

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Again Jesus said, "Simon, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."

Stewardship at its best. Jesus puts a huge responsibility on Peter's shoulders, but he shows him the way to deal with that responsibility at the same time. Not once, but twice. But this was not enough:

The third time he said to him, "Simon, do you love me?"

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?"

He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."  (27)

Three times the question, three times the charge. Why three times?

Because his future leader needed to undo the damage he had done earlier, mainly to himself. Three times he had betrayed Jesus in the night when he would have needed him most. (28) Leadership training with Jesus included the insight that failure may happen, but that if responsibility was accepted, there was a way out.

But Jesus didn't only use the way of loving correction. There were other means at his disposal, too:

Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!"

"You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (25)

There was a time for gentleness, and a time for harsh rebuke.

Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live."

So Jesus went with him. (29)

No hesitancy whatsoever. He just went (and of course raised the girl from the dead).

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. (30)

Now the request didn't even come from some stranger, but from someone that he deeply cared about. Yet he stayed. Until it was seemingly too late.

He knew when to act and when to wait.

When to rebuke and when to comfort.

When to act up and when to remain quiet. (31,32)

When to seek closeness and when to seek solitude. (33,34)

He remained flexible. But this flexibility did not extend to his mission, which he single-mindedly followed.

Flexibility is seen as one of the hallmarks of a leader.

Indeed, Birkenbihl sees it as one of the most important traits of a leader (w).

Kotter focuses as one of the key tools on flexible agenda setting (x).

Beck and Yeager (y) show the need for flexibility in leadership styles, introducing a "Four Window" - frame:

Style 1 (S1) is called "Take Charge and Steer the Ship" with high direction;

style 2 (S2) "The Problem Solver" with high support and high direction;

style 3 (S3) "The Leader as Developer" with high support and finally

style 4 (S4) "Leader as Delegator" with low support and low direction.

Renald Hennig

There is no one perfect leadership style, as shown by the examples given by Beck and Yeager, and some situations lend themselves more to one than to the other styles - flexibility.

Vroom and Yetton (z) have enhanced that idea and developed a well known and validated model to improve decision making. They ask seven questions to analyze the situation at hand; the first three refer to the quality of the situation, the remaining four to the acceptance of the decision.

Using the example of whom to choose as his "board of directors" - the leading Twelve - the following situation develops:

a) Is there a quality need: Will one solution be probably better objectively as compared to another?

Well, there were many followers with many different strengths and weaknesses, and there was no question that some solutions would be worse than others - A: yes.

b) Do I have sufficient information to make a decision of high quality by myself?

He had been working with them for months; most of that time 24 hours per day. He knew them, and he knew each of them well (35) . B: yes.

c) Is the problem structured?

This question does not apply here, since we have already seen that we have sufficient information to find a good solution. We don't need to worry about if additionally needed information can be gathered reliably or whether this is actually is a very routine problem.

d) Is the acceptance of the decision by staff members important for its effective execution?

What would happen, if his growing group of followers would not accept Peter, James or John as the leading triumvirate? There is no leadership without acceptance. D: yes.

e) If I would decide by myself, would the decision still be accepted by the staff?

How much trust did they have in his decisions, especially concerning people? They had seen him again and again looking not only at but into the people, discerning their thoughts and feelings (36) . They did very much trust in him. They would accept. E: yes.

f) Does the staff share the objectives, which are to be reached by solving this problem?

Actually he wasn't totally certain that all of his followers wanted more structure and continued leadership - if that wasn't his leadership. There might very well be dissenters. But overall they had grasped at least a glimpse of the big picture and realized that he had to have a functioning system, if for nothing else, than for distribution. F: yes.

g) Might there be conflicts in the group as to which solution to prefer?

Again not applicable, since e) has been answered in the positive.

According to Vroom and Yetton's model this situation (problem type 3) does not lend itself to any one particular solution strategy. Jesus might have decided to do it all by himself (called A I) or to let the group decide by itself (G II), or chosen any intermediate solution. In our case, he opted for A I, and it turned out to be a good decision, though this was certainly not a given, thinking short term. After all, he deliberately chose Judas. But we'll come to that later.

One might be tempted to introduce another question: b2) Am I able to provide a better solution than the group might?

There is one major problem with that question, though: Since the leader would have to decide on that question, he (or she) would most certainly be tempted to fall for wishful thinking. So we will leave it out for the time being.

Flexibility is needed, but there needs to be a changeless core, too (aa) .

'Jesus turned and saw her.' (37)


Next: The Loser