Council for Health and Human Service Ministries

From the President

Leadership as Following

Photo of Bryan Sickbert A good follower often makes a great leader. I define a good follower as a person who has highly developed, perceptive listening skills; can assimilate and identify with the vision and passion of others; and who can sublimate their own ego and effectively collaborate in the implementation of an idea that they need not claim as their own. Do you know any good followers? I hope so. I hope you have many in your organization. I hope that you, like me, may even strive to be a good follower and thereby turn out to be a great leader.

Over the summer I have been thinking a good deal about how CHHSM can lead. Indeed, the CHHSM Board of Directors and staff have been considering this question in various ways as we seek to articulate an identity for our common life over the next few years. The dominant model of association leadership has been to develop programs and services that research tells us members want - then spend our resources selling stuff to ourselves. This model thrusts the association into competitive mode. While market competition certainly has its merits, I don't think it is the primary field on which a faith-based health and human service association like CHHSM can or should play.

Our game is played on the field of collaboration, resource-sharing and openness to the good ideas of others. To play our game well requires following skills. The phrase "follow the energy" is becoming an organizing principle for CHHSM. Staff and board are spending time looking for centers of positive energy and passion within the CHHSM membership. This issue of Diakonie shares some examples. There are more and, I'm sure, many we have not yet discovered. CHHSM will deploy resources to support and strengthen, not direct, collaborative initiatives within and between our ministries. We will follow your energy and in so doing lead.

Bryan Sickbert
President/CEO


Earlier Columns