Aspects of leadership

Leadership is the idea of how the leader leads.
Several aspects to look at for leadership when analyzing an organisation are:

• History 
• Authority: Social right to exert power in certain situations
• Legitimacy: Culturally appropriate
• Support/Backing: Various groups wanting limited resources for their agenda
• Decision-making: The rules of the decision-making process, the appropriate timing.
• Exercise of power: Power is the participation in the making of decisions, it can be used or abused.

Leadership theories over time

Leadership as a term and concept has only been around since the 1900's so we start our timeline there.

Leadership ideas

• 1900's great men were born with specific traits
• Late 40's Rise of unions took power away from the one great leader idea and gave it to the people
• 50's - 60's Depression saw the reversal of the earlier trend as contingency leaders rose, one strong leader to pull people out of the pit
• 90's were all about vision, so if people didn't feel fulfilled in their job or in the vision they just switched work, no loyalty.
• 1995+ The fall of Enron and other companies bring the concept of morality into leadership.

Leaders we look to also seem to have switched from political leaders like Winston Churchill to business leaders like Donald Trump.

Servant Leadership thoughts

When the bible talks about leadership, it offers metaphors and relationships, like shepherd to sheep and father to child rather than models.
The metaphors the bible uses changes according to the society it's speaking to. So in the NT the metaphors change from rural ones (like sheep), to urban ones (like Greek gyms).
So what are the post-modern equivalents metaphors for servant leadership?

The truth is that leaders and followers share power. You are not a leader if no one is following. Now, the questions is does this work in our relationship with God? I think that God chooses to share power with his followers.