Here is one of my favorite types of leaders to work with and follow, especially, as stated below, when they are a combination of visionary and transformational styles.
Visionary leaders are people-oriented, creative, and goal-oriented. They are dreamers with the ability to transform ideas into reality. Often, as is the case in the following example, visionary leadership and transformational leadership styles can be found in the same person, each enhancing the other. When a leader is merely a visionary, they may run into difficulties getting their visions to become a reality. However, when the skills associated with transformational leadership are combined with visionary leadership, visions become plans of action that can be articulated, motivated in others, and put into action.
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For People Who Don’t Like Church
One of the best examples I have of pastors who possess the combination of transformational and visionary leadership and display the signs of the humility factor is Ray Johnston, the founding pastor of Bayside Church in Northern California. I’ve known Ray for over twenty years, and looking back, virtually everything that he talked about wanting to create in a church has become a reality. I remember times when we served together before he began Bayside that he would talk about the church that he envisioned, what its values would be, how it would function, and the impact it would have. I believed him then, though I had a bit of cautious reservation about how the whole thing would come together, but today Bayside is a phenomenal church in which tens of thousands attend worship each week in twenty services on seven campuses (with more to come). It’s home to some of the best church leadership conferences in the world, and Ray is connected to highly-respected pastors and causes that are household names in the church world. He is a highly effective and successful pastor.
Bayside began very humbly, but with a pastor who had a vision that wouldn’t stop. He began by preaching on a stage made of plywood and milk crates to people who were curious about a church that advertised, “We’re the church for people who don’t like church.” The attendance exploded as Ray brought on talented staff members to work alongside him in a church with passionate worship, in-depth Bible teaching, unleashed compassion, and a focus on children’s ministry that kids absolutely love. Today they have awesome facilities, a world-class staff, unbelievable worship artists, blow-your-mind programming, the best-mobilized volunteers I’ve ever seen, and about the best teaching team you could ever find, but Ray never forgets his humble beginnings at Bayside and his roots as a kid growing up in a non-Christian family.
It would be easy for someone who has accomplished so much to let it go to his head, but that’s not Ray. He is a true transformational and visionary pastor, but he’s also a servant and selfless leader who shares the lead pastor responsibilities with three other senior pastors and scores of other preachers. When Ray is not on the platform or ministering elsewhere in the world, you can bet he’s at Bayside. He makes himself available to people and he is always challenging people to be generous and compassionate. There are a few pastors who I believe have achieved complete humble intelligence, and Ray Johnston is one of them. Bayside continues to grow and is quite certainly successful, effective, and healthy, all because it is led by a humble pastor.
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IMPACT: When the humility factor is added to the leadership style of Visionary, the humble pastor outcome is that, in a manner similar to transformational leaders, brokenness and self-awareness will remind this successful leader that life is not merely about them and what they can achieve. They will develop the ability to look into the future while still keeping a firm grasp of the reality of the present. From a spiritual standpoint, they will not be so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.
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