Entrepreneurial Leadership and Cultural Change in a Faith-Based Organization

Abstract

This paper considers entrepreneurial leadership in a faith-based organization, the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC), between 1996 and 2000. It analyses the strategy of the then Primate, Richard Holloway, to attempt to broaden the Church's membership base through a cultural change initiative. The initiative was designed to question and challenge existing cultural norms and attract new members who might not share them. Although Jungian type theory is usually applied to understanding individual differences, this paper employs type theory innovatively to describe and analyse the SEC's essentially pluralist culture at the time. It appears that a predominantly traditionalist approach was leavened with a more liberal and mystical strain. Holloway set out to define a new cultural vision embracing diversity and to attract others to make it happen. However, he was unable to convince enough existing SEC members that he was right to seek a more heterogeneous membership whose views would better reflect his own increasingly liberal stance. Understanding how fundamental views of reality, held often unconsciously by individuals, inform and influence culture in a faith-based organization sheds new light on the experiences of entrepreneurs in a religious environment. In this case, Jungian-derived type theory may explain how Holloway's entrepreneurial approach attempted to stretch existing cultural norms, reflecting tradition and convention, too far towards a questioning and challenging approach. An entrepreneurial strategy that appeared to make sense in rational terms (and to embrace the Christian ethic of universal acceptance) was ultimately unsuccessful in changing deeply held cultural norms.