Steam Leaders

My wife recently bought a Shark. No, not one of the pointy-toothed predators of the sea, but the effective steam cleaner for all the hard surface floors in your home. One day as I was using it, I looked outside and noticed a road repair crew using a steamroller to repave a section of the street. Seeing how steam could be used in two different ways for two different purposes got me thinking about two different forms of leadership, the Streamroller, and the Steamcleaner. Both have benefits and dangers, but if used properly, can help leaders provide direction to those who follow.

The Steamroller

Steamrollers use heat and weight to smooth roads, remove bumps, and fill ruts. A leader who uses the Steamroller approach must have significant amounts of power, position, and vision to push forward the goals and mission of the organization. The Steamroller essentially says, “I’m the leader. Get on board, or get left behind.” As such, the Steamroller sometimes appears power hungry or uncaring. But in reality, the Steamroller has gained, through experience and wisdom, both the vision and knowledge for where an organization must go and how it can get there. The Steamroller approach is often the only way to effectively lead large groups of people where consensus will never be possible. The Steamroller approach to leadership is effective in leading masses of people to accomplish a certain goal.

The casualties of the Steamroller approach are those who get rolled over. They feel their leader did not hear their voice and is unconcerned about their opinion. This is generally not true, but the leader knows that to get where he wants the organization to go, he does not have the time to listen to everybody who voices dissent. To overcome this danger, the Steamroller must consult with other key leaders to make sure everybody in leadership is headed in the same direction. If there is dissent among the leaders, there will be problems when one Steamroller has a head-on collision with another.

The Steamroller approach is seen as Moses led millions of Israelites through forty years of wilderness wanderings, in Steve Jobs of Apple Corporation who has a vision for both excellence and creativity in computing, and in President Obama who pushes through his healthcare bill because he believes it is best for America.

The Steamcleaner

The other form of leadership is the Steamcleaner.  The Steamcleaner is really just a tool to focus steam in a particular direction. The Steamcleaner helps steam do the work. The person who uses the Steamcleaner approach leads with a quiet, diffusing, invisible, and warming influence. Their touch is light, but the steam they bring exerts great power and force when needed.  This type of leader focuses on observing, listening, and watching the people that are under his or her care, and then, when common themes and natural movement are discerned, applies steam to encourage direction, remove stains, sanitize surfaces, and smooth out wrinkles. The Steamcleaner approach is most often effective in small groups, one-on-one interaction, and long-term relationships. It requires the leader to intimately know the ones who follow, their wrinkles and stains, their troubles and problems. It is rarely a “fix it once and be done with it” approach, but requires frequent repetition, going over the same spot numerous time over the course of months and  years.

As with the Steamroller, there are inherent dangers with Steamcleaner. Steam can scald and burn if used improperly or at the wrong time. To be effective, the Steamcleaner must keep their steam in check. They must not boil over in anger when people respond slowly, or become shrill at those who disagree. If they decide to focus their heat in a particular direction, their touch must be quick and light so that permanent damage is not caused.

So what kind of leader are you? Are you a Steamroller or a Steamcleaner? Maybe you are both, exerting one kind of influence in some places, and the other form elsewhere. As you have led in these ways, what other inherent strengths and dangers exist for that form of leadership? Also, can you think of other leaders in Scripture, business, or politics that fall into one of these categories?