Leaders for the Mission

Leaders for the Mission in the 21st Century

I attended the Strategic Foresight Conference at Regent University School of Leadership Studies in September. While there I was introduced to the idea of "contextual intelligence." Leonard Sweet who was one of the presenters referred to a research project by Harvard Business School's Leadership Initiative. I found on the HBS site an article about the project, "What Great American Leaders Teach Us." The findings of the research project support the need for Christian leaders in the 21st Century to develop "contextual intelligence."

Tony Mayo defined contextual intelligence as the "ability to understand the macro-level factors that are at play during a given period of time." Sounds a lot like the ability to understand the times and the currents of history that we are living in. Tony said that the most surprising finding of the research project was that the "role of contextual intelligence became an increasingly compelling proposition...A business leader's abilitiy to make sense of his or her contextual framework and harness its power often made the difference between success and failure."

Why is this so important today? In light of the rapid changing environment we are living in, the effects of globilization, the emergence of true followers of Jesus within different religious traditions, and the hugh issues facing us as we seek to further the advance of the love and presence of Christ, we need to have frameworks for decision making and collaborative action that will help us navigate the future.

David Smith, a lecturer in Mission and World Christianity at the International Christian College in Glasgow, writes in his book Mission After Christendom, "Every day the church must wake up and ask itself, 'What kind of day is today?' For no two days are alike in her history."