Good leadership is that which enhances the freedom of others. It is mindful of the temptations and negative impact of power, and seeks to continually keep open the means of critical appraisal.

Leaders who see robust criticism as destructive are dangerous. Leaders who encourage deference can become deluded about their own importance.

No leader is indispensable. If their organisation crumbles in their absence the foundations were never well laid.

For many decades now many mainline ministers have seen themselves as fallible guides, trying to enable others, sharing pain, hope and trust, and together with their parishioners seeking God.

The Christian churches have tried to flatten out their structures, emphasising teamwork and mutual accountability. God hasn't been delivered from the top down, like a head office directive, but discovered by ordinary people in the muddle of their ordinary lives. Some churches have been more successful in this than others.

Bishop Brian and his band are building up what most of the rest of Western Christianity has been trying to pull down. He's trying to elevate his God by elevating himself.

It's been tried many times before, and it doesn't work. It creates a dependency that stunts spiritual growth. Those of the Catholic and Protestant traditions know these things because they have been repeated time and again in our own history. The self-promotion and self-glorification of a gifted leader has little to do with a man from Nazareth who once said, "Blessed are the meek."

* Glynn Cardy is vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City in Auckland.