Urban Leadership Foundation

Early pioneering of a movement is often done with a very directive Leadership style. This was captured in Max Weber's early characterization of charisma.

Working alongside the prophet who calls forth a movement, the evangelist and apostle are the ones who births a religious movement, the politician, the recruiter and community organizer a political movement.

These are followed by the pastor-teachers who develop patterns of conservation of the webs of relationships of eh movement. At all points entrepreneurial administrative skill is needed but increasingly as a movement develops administrators take more and more roles till momentum is stopped. To extend the movement life, administrators are always to see their role as servant to the apostolic leadership. Erik Hoffer captured these dynamics in his book, The True Believer, where he speaks of the man of words, the fanatic (the one who brings about waht the man of words saw) and the institutionalizer, as three phases of movement life.

Each of these gifts may be considered to have a preferred set of styles. Each has flip dark side, a difficulty of personality that one has to deal with.