The Strong and Weak Leader

[What Leadership Looks Like]

As my readers well know, I love leadership diagrams. Why? Diagrams are simple, visual, spatial, portable, and expandable.

• Diagrams are simple: they boil down complex ideas into their most memorable components.

• Digrams are visual: I find I can picture them in my head better than just a list--even if it’s just a list turned into a diagram.

• Diagrams are spatial: They help me see the connections between the concepts better than lists, so I know how they are related. 

• Diagrams are portable: I enjoy taking a diagram with me and using it, putting it on a whiteboard or slide, and discussing them.

• Diagrams are expandable: While they start super-simple, I find diagrams can be a portal into a larger universe of understanding.

So that’s part of why I like leadership diagrams, and why I so often talk about what leadership looks like in visual tools.

One of the most instructive diagrams I’ve ever encountered came from Andy Crouch. The little book Strong and Weak* is perhaps not as ambitious as others he’s written, but its short and simple approach sticks. Crouch found a way to make a core leadership concept so portable and memorable that it stands head and shoulders above most other leadership books I’ve ever read, but for a handful.

“Leadership begins the moment you are more concerned about others’ flourishing than you are about your own.” - Andy Crouch

This is the core idea of Strong and Weak

He explains how this plays out with a quadrant that displays the two main elements of flourishing leadership: authority and vulnerability (parallel concepts to being strong and weak.) As leaders, we are perpetually presented with a false choice to either be strong or weak. When in fact, we can be both, which is when authority and vulnerability blend together.

This is how the diagram plays out in our leadership:

• Those without authority and vulnerability are withdrawing.

• Those with only authority and without vulnerability are exploiting

• Those with vulnerability and without authority are suffering. 

• Those who have both authority and vulnerability are flourishing, and cause the flourishing of those around them.

This simple thought is spun like a prism throughout the book, exploring each of the four quadrants in-depth and helping a leader learn how they might be unbalanced in one way or the others. It has helped change my perspective on so many other leadership books, which often help a leader exercise authority more effectively (which is needed) but fail to help them access their vulnerability. 

Flourishing

Healthy authority mixed in equal measure with vulnerability moves “up and to the right” toward flourishing to the “abundant life” mentioned in John 10:10, or the “life that really is life” of 1 Timothy 6:19. Here we find the hope, purpose, and dignity of leadership which draws others into the life Jesus makes possible in us. It is not health, wealth, and growth. Consumerism tempts us toward these limited and ephemeral notions of prosperity…. mirages of true flourishing. Andy Crouch reminds us that the best test for something or someone flourishing is “how it cares for the most vulnerable.”

Suffering

When you have vulnerability but lack authority you experience suffering. When you have no capacity for meaningful action but have meaningful risk, suffering is likely to abound. Those experiencing poverty, deprivation, and oppression, often through loss, injustice, or death are the keepers of suffering. Our sense of justice is often connected with the experience of suffering or through vicarious encounters of others who are suffering. If you have a cause you fight for it likely springs from someone’s suffering.

Withdrawing

When we have no authority or vulnerability, or in part do not admit our authority or vulnerability, we are withdrawing. In legitimate fear of exploiting or suffering, the withdrawing disavows either, in a sort of apathetic abandonment. Escapist activities simulate authority and vulnerability, in entertainment, pornography, and gaming, in a way that can be alluring experientially but are withdrawing in effect.

Exploiting

Conversely, when one has authority but doesn’t demonstrate vulnerability, it leads to exploiting. For leaders, Crouch warns of the seductive nature of this quadrant which tells us we are in control, even seeking to suppress and avoid any notion of our vulnerability. Each of the deadly sins is a kind of seeking authority without vulnerability: sex without commitment becomes lust, food without moderation becomes gluttony, seeking goods and wealth without limit becomes greed, anger without compassion becomes wrath, and the pursuit of power without risk or limit becomes pride. Sloth might be more associated with the withdrawing category above, and envy with suffering.

The Best Exemplar of Flourishing

Without heavy-handedness, Crouch also points us to the ultimate example of flourishing. The one who exercised both authority and vulnerability perfectly was Jesus Christ. Right in the opening chapter, Crouch says of Jesus, “No human life (let alone death) ever unleashed more flourishing for others.”

“We see Jesus’ authority and vulnerability come together in the most astonishing way in the scene we call the transfiguration… [Elijah and Moses] speak not about Jesus’ power, but about his impending condemnation and crucifixion. What is revealed is not authority alone, but authority with vulnerability. Power with self-denial, divinity with humanity–unconquerable life and imminent death… [likewise] we are called to risk hidden vulnerability, finding a way to bear authority without becoming an idol or tyrant.” -Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak (p139-141)

A few questions to discuss in the comments:

• What do you think of the core idea of this book (a paradox) that flourishing comes from being both strong and weak?

• Does the word “flourishing” capture the “life” found in John 10:10 and 1 Timothy 6:19?

• Without naming names, what is it like to be under a leader that is exploiting?

• In what ways are you tempted to exploit your authority?

• In what ways does the withdrawing category reflect any of your tendencies?

• What are some practical ways to display vulnerability while also exercising a just authority to overcome suffering (which leads to flourishing)?

*See Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press