Assigned & Ascribed Leadership

In college I was a sociology major. One of the first distinctions we learned was between assigned and ascribed leadership. Strictly speaking they are distinct, at times they intertwine. Assigned leadership is often first experienced as a child when you are put in the position of line leader to guide the rest of the students out for recess. Ascribed leadership may happen because all the other classmates have seen you excel in a skill and choose you as team captain.

Assigned leadership may depend on one’s status. Bill inherited the position of president of the company. Because of his status in the family hierarchy Bill is assigned his position. Assigned leadership does not require any particular knowledge, skills or experience. How many times have we heard derisive comments about people in assigned leadership positions?

Ascribed leadership depends on one’s knowledge, skills, experience, and achievements. Sue began working in the sales department of the company. She frequently took classes to improve her knowledge. On a regular basis she achieved top ranking in sales. She took on tough sales regions and gained a wealth of experience. It was not long before she was promoted to a regional sales manager. Her next step was to be appointed a vice-president for sales, based on the success of her regional sales team. After a few years as VP, the board of directors of the company elected Sue as the new Chief Executive Officer.

As Sue moved up in the company she was in both an assigned and ascribed leadership position. As regional sales manager, as VP and as CEO she had positional/assigned leadership authority and responsibility. Her increased knowledge, skills, experiences and achievements gave her ascribed leadership authority and responsibility. Sue proved she had what it would take to move into greater positions of authority and responsibility.

When a crisis hit the company, as CEO, Sue was in the assigned leadership position to lead through the crisis. More importantly, Sue had “earned her stripes” to be trusted by the board of directors and employees to follow her lead. Within a couple of years, the company was again flourishing. Imagine what might have happened if Sue had only been in the assigned leadership position without the knowledge, skills, experience and achievement to lead through the crisis with the trust of the board and employees.

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When one is elected as a pastor, immediately out of seminary, about all one has to offer is a passable academic career, and maybe some commendations from field work in a congregation. Yet, being pastor carries with it a level of assigned, or positional, leadership. In the assigned leadership role of pastor there are, and will be, expectations among the members of the congregation, among the regional denominational leaders, the community at large and from future congregations. What are the lessons from Sue’s story which apply to being a pastor, and leading through a crisis?

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TOO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE

I just read a very disturbing story from the New York Times entitled “The World Has Too Many Young People,” by Somini Sengupta. (http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-world-has-a-problem-too-many-young-people/ar-BBqnY8m?li=BBnb7Kz) One would never guess that is the case by looking at a typical Christian congregation in either Europe or the United States where gray hair, arthritic knees and hips, and declining membership is the norm.

Sengupta focuses much of her article on India. Here are a few eye-opening statements in the article.

-Every month, some one million young Indians turn 18 — coming of age, looking for work, registering to vote and making India home to the largest number of young, working-age people anywhere in the world.

- Already, the number of Indians between the ages of 15 and 34 — 422 million — is roughly the same as the combined populations of the United States, Canada and Britain.

- This is just part of India’s staggering challenge. Every year, the country must create an estimated 12 million to 17 million jobs.

These figures do not include China, Africa, Central and South America. One of the points Sengupta makes is that unemployed and unemployable youth are the fertile ground for frustration, anger and revolt. What do we say, “Let them eat naan?” Sengupta gives an ominous warning, Mind your young, or they will trouble you in your old age.

Sengupta states, In the United States, nearly 17 percent of those between the ages of 16 and 29 are neither in school nor working. (I do not think that includes the vast number of people, especially African-America, in that age grouping who are incarcerated.) We wonder why our inner city populations and the rural poor are enticed into illicit, and often violent, activities. If that is so here, can we really be surprised by uprisings in other parts of the world?

During this political campaign season, we hear some of the candidates proclaiming they will bring jobs back to the United States. Sure, we still have an official unemployed rate of someplace between 4.5% and 5.5% of the population. The unofficial rate may be a percentage point of two higher. Would some of our unemployed take the menial jobs which have been exported? Sure, some would. If we were to reclaim all the jobs which have gone off shore, we would only be making matters worse in those countries to which the jobs were transferred. If the economic situation in countries, such as Indian, were exacerbated by “bringing home those jobs,” would we not be contributing the horrid conditions there?

If the Syrian Refugee immigration into Europe has created problems, what would it look like if the youthful unemployed of India were to engage in a massive immigration not only into Europe but into the United States? What would it look like if one million young people were to immigrate each month into Europe and the United States?

There are a myriad of ethical and economic questions and variables which are not easily answered. I do not have the answers. I do know Sengupta’s article raises many points of concern for me. We are told the U.S. population is confused and frightened as we see our lives as they used to be no longer being that way now nor into the future. We live in a world sheltered from the realities with which much of the global population must cope daily. It is almost as if we were on The Truman Show. Articles like Sengupta’s give us a squinting view of the real world. Once viewing it, what are we to do?

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