Shared Leadership in Bible for Application

Shared Leadership Can Boost Collaboration 

In my last essay, I proposed the Formation of Different Players with a Unified Goal through the collaboration between nonprofits and churches. The framework provides a conceptual pathway for tacit coordination in advancing biblical blessings in the community from defenders to the midfielders, and finally to the strikers. All parties have a common goal to set the potential believer on a journey towards Christ. 
 
However, the teamwork within an organization can sometimes be difficult as the differences between individuals will give rise to friction in mutual interaction. The collaboration between two kinds of organizations can be even more complicated as different leaders with their own leadership styles are engaged in the dynamics. To overcome the challenge, I would propose that all parties engaged in the collaborative network to have a common practice in shared leadership to make the mechanism work effectively. There are several benefits to taking a shared leadership approach:

• It is congenial to the teachings in the Bible.
• It is a proven approach in managing teamwork.
• It is culturally adaptable to Chinese leaders.

Four Moral Leaders in the Old Testament

We can first take a look at the Old Testament. God understands our weaknesses. In governing the nation of Israel, he knew that leaders needed a multi-lateral monitoring and supporting system. He raised four types of moral leaders for the Israelites to help them live out transformed lives under the gift of the Law. Then, they would be able to attract all other nations to come to faith in the Lord.¹ These four types of moral leaders in Israel include: 
(a) the priest, 
(b) the king, 
(c) the prophet, and
(d) the judge. 
 
Here, a judge refers to an elder’s role of resolving a dispute between two parties (Joshua 20:4-6). Events, motives, and behaviors are subject to examination under the Law and the customs accepted in society. The judgment of the elders would result in reconciliation or penalties. 
 
These four different roles do not necessarily correspond to four persons. One person can play multiple roles. For example, Samuel was a prophet, but he was also the last judge of Israel. Another example was Solomon, who played the dual roles of a king and a judge. We can recall his wisdom in judging two young women living in the same house, each claiming the same infant as her own son (1 Kings 3:26-28). His discernment in this judgment helped him to earn public recognition as a God-favored king.
 
Each leadership role had its strengths and weaknesses as shown in the following table. No single type was perfect but combining them forms a complementary construct for safeguarding the well-being and prosperity in society.² The implication from the Bible is clear. A well-functioning societal system requires complementary leaderships, each carrying different roles, to ensure checks and balances.

Shared Leadership in Contemporary Management

Shared leadership has been applied in the West for a long time. It is also regarded as relevant to building teamwork in corporations in China.³ I have found that Meredith Belbin’s team roles model sheds light on our discussion here. After ten years of empirical studies, Belbin identified a mix of nine leadership roles. The comprehensive spectrum makes teamwork more effective. Each role has its limitations and merits. A team with all nine roles working together yields better performance than a team lacking certain roles.⁴

Again, holding the full spectrum of nine team roles does not necessarily mean nine team members because each member may sometimes play multiple roles. Each member can be a good leader in certain situations; nonetheless the same role should step back in other situations. Interestingly, the nine roles can be divided into four major groups according to the Chinese concept of shared leadership.

East Meets West on Power Sharing

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義) is a well-known Chinese novel set during the Three Kingdoms period. The storyvividly narrates the effective use of complementary roles in warfare. Competing for hegemony, the Shu Kingdom (蜀國) had to fight with two other kingdoms in three-way conflict. In Shu, four great leaders confronted enemies strategically as they played different roles complementing each other in strengths while covering each other’s weaknesses. Their seamless cooperation once helped this weaker state rise in power. Each of the four elites acted in his virtue in contribution to the esprit de corps: 
a. Kingship (Liu Bei劉備)
b. Wisdom (Zhu Ge Liang諸葛亮)
c. Benevolence (Guan Yu關羽)
d. Valor (Zhang Fei張飛)⁵

 Belbin’s nine team roles, listed in the following table,⁶ can be juxtaposed with the four leaders’ roles in the novel as follows:

Amalgamation of the Sino–Western–Scriptural Team Roles—a Multi-Perspectival Framework for Shared Leadership

The above framework (Table 2) illustrates a principle corresponding to Paul’s precept to the Corinthians, “But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (1 Corinthians 12:24-25) Sometimes, our eyes take the initiative to lead the whole body to respond to a contingency. At other times, the ears take charge. No matter which organ takes the lead, every part has to work in harmony in order to respond properly to the changing environment. These verses are not only applicable within the church, but also to the collaboration between the churches and the nonprofits with Christian values so that we can show the world our unity in Christ. Both Belbin’s team role model and the four moral leaders’ model in the Old Testament point ahead to a common ground of how leaders should work in unity with members having diversities of personalities, experience, roles, and gifts.

It would be wonderful to combine all three models into a single frame so that Chinese readers can more easily grasp the profound motif of synergy through collaborative team roles. The juxtaposition in the following structure shows a Sino–Western–Scriptural version of ideal power-sharing teamwork. 

Conclusion

In taking a creative-access approach, it is important to keep a low profile in sharing testimony and the good news. Yes, such actions have to be persistent, adaptive, and prudent. Each Christian group—whether a church or parachurch organization—can contribute its part toward forming a perfect whole. Shared leadership is the key to such effective collaboration between the churches and the nonprofits. Each member of the network plays a critical but different role in carrying out actions of loving kindness and righteousness to transform society. Within these interconnections, every party has to identify its dedicated role(s). A leader emerges to push the ball forward to another party at the right situation while he subsides to plough his own furrow at other times. In all circumstances, we reserve a supreme headship position to Christ who guides the whole progress of the ministry (Colossians 1:18). 

Many researchers have a keen interest in the application of shared leadership in Chinese corporations. Their studies show this Western tool has become widely used in companies and industries. I hope the framework outlined above will help to promote this important practical theology to Christian organizations so that we can explore more ways to bless the community.

1. Editorial Board of Ecclesia Bible Society, Compass: The Study for Navigating Your Life (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2014), 212.
2. Duane M. Covrig, Mordekai O. Ongo, and Janet Ledesma, “Integrating Four Types of Moral Leadership,” The Journal of Applied Christian Leadership 6, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 49.
3. Marvin Wolf, “Business Ethics and Leadership,” Business Ethics and Leadership 7, no. 4 (2023).
4. Marvin Wolf, “Business Ethics and Leadership,” Business Ethics and Leadership 7, no. 4 (2023).
5. 吉林大學中文系中國文學史教材編寫小組，《中國文學史稿》，第3卷（北京：人民出版社，1961），132。
   Jilin University, Faculty of Chinese, Editorial Board, Manuscript of Chinese Literature, vol. 3 (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1961), 132.
6. Meredith Belbin, Team Roles at Work (Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010), 52–55.