Some people may call it coincidence, but I do not; I choose to believe in Divine Direction which is exactly what occurred when I uprooted the book Fit & Flourish from the bookshelf in my home office on a recent July day. Considering the book has been in my possession since before life changed with the COVID pandemic in March of 2020, I find it divine that it was only while dusting a shelf in preparation for guests visiting the house (because isn’t that when we all clean up) that I was reminded it awaited my reading. Because it has a square, rather than rectangle shape, it failed to fit neatly with the remaining stack, so I plopped Dr. Roehl’s book down on the ottoman to be my next read so the spines of the remaining “to-read” books would be aligned.

With so many connections to this flourishing blog, in addition to using my Word, I’m pretty certain there will be multiple postings referencing Fit & Flourish, but today the focus will be about his concept of TransforMissional Leadership which truly resonated with me and creates an additional type of leadership to those mentioned in previous posts like Transactional vs. Transformational: Relationships. Roehl shares, “Transformissional leadership is leadership that has two great purposes in mind for the people they lead. First, transformissional leaders value people and seek to add value to those they lead. They want those they lead to experience the Great Commandment…They genuinely want God’s best for those they lead…Second, a transformissional leader helps equip people for their part in the Great Commission…They want to steward their people…A transformissional leader has found where they best fit and flourish and helps others do the same.”

Roehl’s descriptors for TransforMissional Leadership builds on the ideas of a transformational leader who is able to align an organization under one vision, influence a great number to invest in a shared mission, and create relational equity through a deep investment in people, but this leadership style also emphasizes one of the best models we have for servant leadership, Jesus Christ. “Jesus is our Ultimate Leader, the One who perfectly blends sovereign authority with servant ability. He’s the One who made the ultimate sacrificial transaction on our behalf when He paid a debt we could never repay to restore our relationship with the Father. He’s the One whose motivation was selfless love and whose mission was entirely on behalf of others.”

Even leaders who do not embrace a personal relationship with Christ would be wise to implement his model of what it means to lead others well. Most organizations, whether a small non-profit or a Fortune 500 company, create a mission statement to align their organization’s goals and objectives. What if all organizational leaders adopted a TransforMissional Leadership philosophy which equipped their people to find the place where they best fit, in order to flourish both personally and professionally? These would be the types of organizations that I would choose to be a part of. How about you?

Do you know of a leader who you would describe as transformational but who also takes the organization to a higher level by being TransforMissional? Please share their story in the comments below.

References:

Roehl, T. (2018). Fit & flourish: Discover how God created you to make a difference. Tim Roehl.