Tom Arthur: Would you rather work for Don Trump or Michael Scott?
I’m a little embarrassed to say this out loud, but it’s the time of year when I indulge my guilty pleasure: “Celebrity Apprentice.” Go ahead and groan. In my defense, how can a guy who grew up listening to Cyndi Lauper resist the temptation of watching her compete head to head with Rod Blagojevich?
I call it leadership development.
The real draw each season isn’t any of the contestants. It’s watching Donald Trump, slowly but surely, fire each celebrity but one. Where in the world does Trump get all that chutzpah? He always seems so confident. Maybe this is a trick of the producers and editors. They’re busy making everyone else look foolish and making Trump look like a rock star leader. If you want a cultural symbol of successful leadership, Trump is about as good it gets. He’s got hotels, money, women, and now his own show that a lot of other leaders (or ex-disgraced-governors) want to be on. Who wouldn’t want to be a leader like Donald Trump?
In contrast to Trump and his leadership style is my other guilty pleasure: “The Office.” I’m not sure which show offers more embarrassing moments. One is supposedly “real” and the other is “staged,” but somehow in every episode of “The Office,” Michael Scott (Steve Carell) makes me cringe with embarrassment. How I came to get over the cringe factor and enjoy the laugh factor is still a mystery to me. An even bigger mystery is that when I ask myself who I would rather be like as a pastor, Donald Trump or Michael Scott, Scott wins hands down every time. Ask yourself, would you rather work for Michael Scott or Donald Trump?
I couldn’t put my finger on my preference for Michael Scott over Donald Trump until the most recent episode of “The Office.” Cohesion in the office falls apart as the sales department becomes more important in the company and ends up getting bigger paychecks. All of a sudden money and success come into the story. Michael says that this office breakdown is because they used to “make friends first, make sales second.”
Here’s my leadership takeaway. “The Office” is the kind of place where friendship takes precedence over almost every other goal. When I first started watching I wondered why the characters didn’t just quit and go work someplace else. But then I realized that there is a deep honesty in the show, and honesty leads to commitment. People are who they are, even in all their embarrassing glory, and somehow they keep working together (but do they ever actually do any work?). Somehow Michael Scott holds all these people together amidst their eccentric personalities and crazy dysfunctions.
That’s a different kind of success than the kind that Trump symbolizes, and it’s the kind of success that a pastor should be aiming for. Sometimes successful pastoral leadership looks quite different than what the world calls success. Sometimes it looks like Michael Scott.
Tom Arthur is pastor of Sycamore Creek United Methodist Church in Lansing, Michigan.
Do pastors need to be leaders?
Webster’s defines pastor as spiritual overseer and traces the word back to herdsmen. I would argue that this has little if anything to do with leadership. Which is why I beleive Michael Scott would be a much better pastor than Donald Trump.
Recognizing that I may have just offended several pastors please know that I am not trying to say that you cannot be a leader and a pastor. I understand that being a herdsmen was a tough and demanding job with significant responsibilities. What I am saying is that the being a good pastor does not necessarily correlate with being a good leader. In the Return of the King we see the “Steward”/overseer of Gondor contrasted with the King of Gondor, putting ‘coolness’ aside, who would you rather follow?
Michael Scott, the way I understand him and the way that Tom has described him, is definitely an overseer. That is all he does, he does not guide, effectively at least, the people he oversees. Instead of addressing conflict he tends to watch and only reacts when someone offends him.
Donald Trump on the other hand is easily seen as a ‘cold’ and driven person. I see him as being a person who would trample over or “fire” anyone that cannot implement his desired outcome. I would say that Donald Trump is a leader and not an overseer.
Let us consider a church situation where Michael or Donald were a pastor. Let us add to their church a person who has a totally perverted view on Christianity. I believe that Michael would tolerate this person and bring them into the ‘community’ and allow them to ‘poison’ the group (see Dwight Schrute). I believe that Donald would tolerate the person, see if he could work with them and ultimately ‘fire’ them if needed (see Rod Blagojevich (he better not win now)).
If I were the individual that needed to grow closer to God I would want Donald Trump because I believe he would develop me as best and as long as he could. I believe that Michael Scott would just gossip about me to a camera behind a closed door.
Michael is not really able to impact many people outside of the office. Infact to grow people must leave his office. Donald capitalizes on the abilities of his people and as a result his people grow (maybe not as much as his ego).
I would choose to work for Donald Trump over Michael Scott. But I would rather watch the Office over the Celbrity Apprentice.
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