Back to the middle. 

Let’s play the opposites game.  What are opposites?  These are objects or ideas or values that are not the same.  they contrast.  They don’t fit together nicely, and so they compete for our time, our money, and attention.  For example, what’s the opposite of up?  Down.  If you’re up, you’re not down.  What’s the opposite of right?  Left.  If you’re left, you’re not right.  Opposite of black?  White.  What’s the opposite of in?  Out.  What is the opposite of mine?  Yours.  The opposite of ours?  Theirs.  Opposite of liberal?  Conservative.  Opposite of eastern?  Western.  If you’re eastern, you can’t be western.  Opposite of private?  Public.
 
The problem with opposites is that if you’re one, it’s very hard to be the other.  And for many of us who see goodness on both sides, we instinctively feel – we believe – there is a better place where both sides can co-exist somehow. 

Black, White, Or Grey?

So, maybe I don’t want to play opposites anymore.  Consider this, what is the opposite of grey?  What’s the opposite of the middle?  I invite you to consider a new game, a new vision of leadership in your community or organization, in your home, or in our nation – a new vision of leadership that caters not to the glamour or media ratings found in opposites, but embraces the difficult tension between two or more competing values – somewhere in the middle, the murky, gray, middle.  The middle is usually not where the public debate about important issues tends to take us. 

The murky middle is not an extreme position that attracts attention.  But – I would submit – the middle is a more sophisticated position in most public policy debates, one that is often too complicated for media sounds bites, and therefore a position often avoided by popular voices.  But I think we can be different. 

I think we are a called to be different.  To be better.  I think the middle is where the voice of the Church should be the loudest: To lead our community with a voice that is morally superior – not because it is popular or easy or familiar or easily captured by the media – but to lead our community with a moral voice from the murky, difficult, sophisticated middle.  This is what theologian John Wesley and others often called the “via media”, Latin for the middle way, or middle ground.  Wesley was often criticized for searching for that elusive third alternative.  This middle way applies to all kinds of issues – in debates about social policies, economics, local decisions, state decisions, and what goes on in our businesses, our churches and even our homes. 

Dandelions: A Parable¹  

Let’s consider an example, a parable.  Since we’re embarking on this new, more evolved way of leadership, we ought to at least chat about some of the more difficult issues first.  Dandelions.  Seriously.  You’ve got this neighbor who somehow refuses, or forgets, or can’t afford to do anything about his dandelions.  And you know what’s going to happen — if the wind is blowing your way, next week you’ll have his dandelions.  Now you’re infected by his disease.  His weakness has affected you.  But it was his fault.  His seeds floated to your lawn.  He should fix it. 

An oppositional leadership approach would set up a conflict between your lawn and his dandelions, between you and him.  You could threaten not to be his friend, withdraw aid, and he could retaliate by planting more dandelions upwind from you (can you plant dandelions?). 

Or, you can consider a middle ground, the via media – the gray between two lawns of yellow.  You could first acknowledge together that the wind is a community resource, and not something we control.  And you could consider working together to eliminate the dandelions from both lawns.  This requires a new respect for the murky middle, a respect for the tension between my individual property rights and my social responsibility.  In the middle we hold competing values in tension.  This requires talking – which is not always easy, especially if your neighbor comes from somewhere else.  This requires setting aside the origin of the problem — after all, it is true the seeds came from his lawn, not yours.  But you could ask, where did his dandelions come from?  And the murky middle requires that I am willing to be perceived by other neighbors as one who is cooperating with that offender. 

You are choosing to risk a perception problem, in order to solve the real problem.  This is leadership from the murky middle.  This is a kind of leadership that ignores popular perceptions and media sound bites, and embraces the healthy tension between competing values – and embraces a real solution to a difficult problem.

If we can handle dandelion seeds, we can handle anything.

© Copyright by Jeffrey Y. Harlow, Ph.D (2009).

1. Find the entire speech I delivered to the Christian Businessmen’s Association several year ago.  I used this parable, and several other illustrations to render my audience a bit uncomfortable about leadership in the Church.  Look in “Special Articles” above.