All of us seem to understand what abuse is. We have all been subject to bad treatment by some one in authority at one time or another. It is important to point out that all of us, parents, bosses, governors, church leaders, have weaknesses, and because of this we need to be patient with any given leadership. If we can forgive the inevitable and occasional leadership errors and move on without resentment (a "burned in" anger memory) we can be a great asset to the organization that we belong to. However, when a leadership intentionally and carelessly propagates repeated and escalating abuses upon those under their authority, there must be some recourse for meaningful communication to improve the situation or harmful dynamics will develop in the group which will hinder it from achieving its purposes and eventually may jeopardize it's existence.
Throughout history protagonists have stubbornly chosen imposed rule, intolerance and severe enforcement, as the magic formula for establishing and maintaining control. Scripture calls this package 'Lording it over them'. The word 'lording' implies "I own them, I am their master". This seems to work for a while, but eventually it breaks down and gives way to the evaporation of the cohesion of the organization replaced by sub-groups of resentment, which usually involve a lot of subversive activity that harms the organizations ability to fulfill its objective.
At the personal level the core problem that hinders healthy leader/follower relationships is trust. In the spiritual environment this factor corresponds closely with faith in God forming a vague triad between the leader/follower and God. If a leader does not believe that God can or is working in a subordinates life, or if a follower does not believe that God can or is working in a leaders life and leadership, fear, doubt, and suspicion sprout up and out of those, evil devices develop from the fertile soil of human weakness to control and force obedience or in the case of the follower avoid any significant commitment. Bad leadership evolves over time; in that period of time trust in others and faith in God erode and leave a situation where the leader feels compelled to use means that force followers to comply with their desires. Often the leader knows at the beginning that these means are wrong and even malevolent in nature, but they are so effective (on the surface and in the immediate situation) that they eventually define the way these leader get results from others, and eventually the leader is given over to cannibalistic social attitudes towards those under their care. Sin like leprosy and cancer, is a progressive disease.
I stumbled across a significant discovery recently that poignantly illustrates the organizational stalemate that exists in churches that employ the errant LORDING IT OVER THEM leadership model. In the imposed leadership model, a self destructive pattern grows out of contempt and corrupts the organization, transforming willing servants into power hungry bureaucrats who are willing to use the destructive tools of *veto, *intimidation and *boycott in reply to the use of toxic power (wonder where they learned that?). While researching something else, I stumbled upon the term "Labor Union" in our old Encyclopedia. As I read, my thoughts converged in an epiphany of correlation. Eureka! The same dynamics I have seen to draw a church into the despairing depths of gridlock have been used before to bleed businesses of resources and deviate them from purpose, sometimes for legitimate reasons and sometimes for entirely impertinent reasons.
