Shared Leadership

Last week I was privileged to join with a group of key leaders from Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands for our biennial Oceania Leadership Summit, held in picturesque Kurrajong, NSW.

The theme for the week was Shaping Our Future Together, addressing some of the key areas requiring change in our prevailing organisational culture.

I appreciated the transparency and insights from the leaders who presented sessions during the Summit – it was refreshing to hear about a willingness to confront the need for change in order to be more effective in seeking to fulfil God's Great Commission vision. I was also greatly encouraged by the honest and robust dialogue we entered into across the course of the week.

One of the topics we considered was the issue of shared leadership. I found this to be a really important topic to engage with. Shared leadership means that leadership cannot be left to the few; it must be entrusted to others - the responsibility for the mission-critical work has to be shared; each person owns the whole (vision/plan); individual initiative is encouraged; various gifts and roles are utilised well.

CCC’s Steve Sellers spoke of our need to move away from the more traditional Old Testament hierarchical/directive model to embrace more of a flat-level/guidance model as seen in the New Testament. Steve reminded us that when Jesus left the earth and ascended to heaven he did so without leaving one leader in charge, but rather he entrusted His mission to a small team of dedicated apostles left to carry on His kingdom work together, under His authority, empowered by His Holy Spirit.

Steve raised a few more shared leadership principles which I found particularly insightful. He talked about the meaning of the term Peloton; a French word used to describe a group of cyclists who ride closely together to achieve victory through team effort and efficiency.

From this we can learn that;

1) you can go further and faster if you go together

2) if you’re always in the lead then you’re going to face the most resistance and therefore become the most fatigued.

Now, I’m certainly no great cyclist or road-racer, but I like what the example of the peleton can teach me about traveling the journey with others as an integrated unit (like birds flying in formation), with each rider sharing the load and making the necessary adjustments in response to the riders around him.

Surely this is the better way to go in leadership...in ministry...in building spiritual movements; enabling more of us to go the distance and reducing the level of fatigue we so often have to confront in the team-work of building God’s kingdom.


“Paul and Barnabas also appointed elders in every church. With prayer and fasting, they turned the elders over to the care of the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.
Acts 14:23 NLT