The Apostle: Exploration and Foundation-Laying
This is the first post in a series exploring the five leadership types from Ephesians 4: Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, and Teachers. Each represents a distinct leadership emphasis that organizations need at different times, and requires different skills and mindsets.
In my opinion, leaders must be pioneers. Not every pioneer is a leader, but leaders must be pioneers. They must be willing to go first, to set the pace, to make the decision that everyone else doesn’t want to make.
The Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians lists apostles as the first of the gifts given to the church. “And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.”
The Apostle is the one who is sent ahead, the pioneer establishing new ground. It’s not the only or most important role, but we should wonder why it is mentioned first.
Leaders must pioneer because they must see ahead of the curve. They pioneer because they need to explore and understand the space that they need to lead in, and therefore make informed decisions on where they lead others to. They pioneer to open paths and enable possibilities that were not available before.
The Apostle is this kind of a leader in the church - or maybe more accurately out of the church - who goes and pioneers new paths, new grounds, new people, and therefore expands the organization.
The Apostle Transition
However, as the organization scales up, the Apostle often struggles to find a place. The same restless nature that drives them to explore and pioneer tends to drive them to either start new initiatives within the organization - which can cause churn and chaos - or to leave and find something new.
This is also - I think - why many founders end up not being the long-term CEOs of their companies as they scale; scaling and stabilizing simply requires different skills from pioneering.
Ephesians 4 gives us a kind of map of the different types of leaders in an organization, and it lists the Apostle first because they are the ones who open the way for everyone else. But they need other leaders around them to keep going and growing.