HOW TO SPOT A TOXIC LEADER
The US Naval Special Warfare Development Group is commonly known as SEAL Team Six. When it comes to selecting who enters this crème de la crème military unit, they evaluate by plotting performance on the battlefield on one axis against trust off the battlefield on the other. For them, one charts “whether I can trust you with my life”, the other “whether I can trust you with my money and my wife”.
In gospel ministry, this often maps to the ability to get God’s truth out to others versus your integrity in getting that truth into yourself.
Unsurprisingly, in Seal Team Six, no one wants to recruit the person who is low on performance and low on trust. Everybody wants to pick someone who is both a high performer and highly trustworthy. What the Seals have learnt, though, is that the high performer with low trust is a toxic leader and a toxic team member. Strikingly, they would much rather have a trusted medium performer, or even a relatively low performer with high levels of trust, than an extremely capable but toxic person.
Thus, in one of the highest performing secular organisations in the world, trust is valued over performance. How much more should this be the case in Christian ministry?
One of the problems we face, in the Information Age, is that a speaker’s ability to handle the truth and get it across can be easily and widely appraised, whilst it is much, much harder to measure someone’s trustworthiness. This means that we often end up unwittingly promoting and rewarding toxicity in evangelical churches, with conference slots, senior roles, trustee status, financial control and other undue influence. If the person has enough confidence and charisma, it can become a vicious circle.
In the UK context, this unfortunate consequence is compounded by endemic elitism, classism, cronyism, racism, regionalism and misogyny, which already favours certain individuals on illegitimate grounds. In turn, when this meets biddable loyalty to Christian ministers, a culture that doesn’t accommodate dissenting views, and a controlling cartel of leaders (sometimes even linked by the same abuse scandal), it will result in lamentable damage to individuals, and unhealthy churches that show impressive expansion before inevitable and spectacular collapse. Inauthentic gospel growth never lasts.
The irony is that it is unbelievably easy to spot our toxic leaders. They are often the ones who refuse to use their privilege and high-performance gifting to expose and address the roots of our recent abuse crises. Instead, their lack of trustworthiness means that, rather than owning up to personal and corporate failings, they show “faux-nerability” and use those same gifts to create an alternative, condescending narrative.
Equally, if you go to any gospel ministry team and ask, “Whose integrity do you trust more than anybody else? Who speaks up for those who cannot speak for themselves? Who is demonstrating a compassionate concern to take the gospel to the least, the last and the lost? Who has always got your back and, when the chips are down, they will always be there with you” – you will often find everyone pointing to the same person. At that moment, you will have found a true servant leader, who is creating an environment for everybody else to flourish, and … they may not be your most impressive orator. But, that person, you better keep them on your team.
I owe a debt of thanks to Simon Sinek for the framing and the substantial content on which this article is based.
