Week 12 (Michael Berens)

Week 12 (Michael Berens)
Tuesday 6, 2009
Formal Leadership Theory

360 Degree Leadership
Bill Hybels 360 is a leadership theory that describes how leadership is all around you. It says that you are always under a leader, over a leader, and next to a leader. It is not leadership that is only focused on the people “below” the leader, but also in other directions. The 360 Degree Leader is anyone who desires to lead those around them in any direction. Co-Workers can lead each other. Subordinates can lead their supervisors. Supervisors can lead those that are “above”, “below”, and “across” them. What matters is that you are a leader.

This theory is easily applied to Exit 59. At Exit 59 the leadership of the church is in the laypeople. There are pastors that are hired. They are bi vocational pastors though, so the amount of work that needs to be done is large and vast. The different chores around the church alone would take up someone’s whole week. The children’s ministry could not be done unless there were numerous volunteers. Even cleaning the church needs volunteers. Exit 59 also wants lay people to dream up their own ministry and run them. We want to empower not hand hold. Since there are so many things running at the same time, leadership is distributed among many people. It is a 360 degree leadership naturally. If you come into the church to volunteer or work, there is good chance that you will lead others, be lead by a pastor and lead alongside a team all at the same time. That is the point of Exit 59. It is about empowering lay people so that they will go out into other churches and serve them well as leaders, co leaders, and sub- leaders.