2. PERSON-ROLE-SYSTEM
A FRAME FOR LEADING
• System - Multiple
interacting roles, cores
tensions, …
• Role - The White space in
your job description;
expectations that are hard
to specify but need to be
met.
• Self - Personality, skills,
experience, gender,
ethnicity, race, …
System
ROLE SELF
3. SOME DEFINITIONS OF “ROLE”
• In every social system individuals occupy positions for
which certain behaviors are expected. Those
expectations about behavior are called “roles.”
• “Role” is the white space in your job description:
Expectations that are hard to specify, but need to be
met.
• A “role” is the part played in a given social context along
with the characteristics or expected patterns of behavior
that it entails.
4. UNDERSTANDING THE ORGANIZATIONAL
AND SITUATIONAL CONTEXT
• Organizational role connects work to the organization’s mission -
e.g. doctors in public hospitals vs. private hospitals
• What is the vestry’s organizational role? How does that differ
from a board?
• Situational Role organizes work in the moment - e.g. a doctor
with a poor prognosis: “My role here is to be the bearer of bad
news” versus a doctor in the O.R.: “My role here is to save a
person’s life.”
• What are situational roles that we will face as vestry members?
5. SURFACING ROLE AMBIGUITY
• The expectations of an ambiguous role like “friend”
are more tacit, less explicit.
• In organizations, role expectations (those given and
those taken) can also have ambiguous parts.
• How might we encounter role ambiguity on vestry?
For example: Jerry Seinfeld’s response to someone
asking him for a ride to the airport in NYC make a tacit
assumption about the role “friend” explicit:
It’s too soon! I haven’t known him long enough for him
to ask me to drive him to the airport!
6. MANAGING COMPETING
DEMANDS
• “Role Strain” occurs
when we have
difficulty managing
the incompatible
demands that are
built into a role.
• What are some
possible instances
of role strain for
us as a vestry?
For example, a major
task for medical
students is to learn to
balance the
dispassionate and the
compassionate, in
service of their new
role.
7. PERSON IN ROLE
• Skills
• Traits and identity
• Passions
• Skill Gaps
• Quirks
• Anxieties
Mobilizing Strengths…
Managing Weaknesses…
ROLE SELF
8. PERSON IN ROLE
What are some of your
strengths that help us
to be a better, more
effective vestry?
Where are the pitfalls
that may be hard for
me to lead as a vestry
member? Can I seek
out help from others?
Mobilizing Strengths…
Managing Weaknesses…ROLE SELF
9. ONE ROLE CAN BE A LENS THAT
FILTERS OUR VIEW OF OTHER ROLES
• The role we play in our
family of origin is one
filter through which we
often look at other
roles.
• Our prior training or
work in another field
influences how we see
our current role.
For example, if we play
the mediator in our
family of origin, we
often find ourselves
drawn to that role in
our work lives, for
better or for worse.
10. WE CAN DISTANCE OURSELVES FROM PARTS
OF THE ROLE WE FIND PROBLEMATIC
• People use distancing
techniques when they
don’t want others to
identify them with a
given role.
• People can also over
identify with some
aspects of a role while
denying others.
For example, a grant
maker saying no to an
applicant by saying, “if
it were up to me…”
11. A ROLE-SELF PARADOX: MUCH THAT
FEELS PERSONAL IS NOT PERSONAL
In organizations, much of the time we think we are dealing
person-to-person when, in fact, we are dealing role-to-role.
And much that feels personal isn’t personal.
One example is a parishioner coming up to the priest after
the service in tears saying: “You have ruined the church for
me. When we say the Contemporary Lord’s Prayer I cannot
worship and I cannot believe you would make me do that!”
What are some examples for us as vestry members?
Oshry, Barry. “Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational life. Berrett-Koehler, 1996, p. 13.
12. WHAT ARE THE ROLES OF THE
VESTRY?
Given what we have just discussed and what is in the
vestry resources guide, what are our roles and how do
we live into them?
• Canons state
• Agents and legal representatives of the
parish in all matters concerning its
properties
• Ensure that standard business methods
will be observed
• nominating persons for holy orders
• Resource guide states
• Articulate the congregations mission
• Ensure effective congregational planning
• Ensure adequate resources and effective
stewardship
• After discerning mission, establish and
monitor programs and services
• Communicate with the church and with the
community
