I have recently come from an organization that has such a person and has this effect on any new hire in a particular position. I lasted longer than most because I did look for advice and developed a relationship. However, once that relationship was taken and abused, for the Tribal Leader's personal gain, I blocked the move and as mentioned above, crossed him seriously enough that within the year I was no longer in a position of favour and needed to move on.
The tragedy of the matter is that for most people, barring the abuse part, have identical basic goals to that of the Tribal Leader. They all wanted to raise the necessary funds to make their ministry succeed.
The older gentleman was wary of cooperating with the new and younger vice-presidents that came in because they all claimed magic and yet none of them were able to produce even close to what they claimed they could do. Instead of creating plans that would enable them to succeed in the long term, most wanted to use use new methods of obtaining more funds from the current base of support - you can imagine what they did at some points in the relationships.
The older gentleman knew the relationships already, just needed someone to go and find new relationships, strengthen and maintain the current ones and build confidence in a team that could do the same and saw the value of those relationships.
Stick close to your tribal leader - most likely an older gentleman, but there have been older women as well in these roles - especially in church settings. Their advice will be what you want to hear, listening will make you successful, gaining input to your new ideas will give you a voice of support when the time is right.
