When ministry leaders come and go in just a few years, I wonder how connected they were with other people.  Could they have had greater longevity and success by being vulnerable and discussing these issues with someone else?

If you are finding leadership a lonely experience, here are some people who can keep you company.

Staff

You should be able to discuss almost any issue with your senior staff because they are your team and they are the ones who will execute whatever plans you approve.  They are every bit as familiar with the ministry as you are and they share your vital interest in its success.  Why not bring them into your confidence?

Just because the senior leader has the executive authority and bears all the responsibility for results (to the board) doesn’t mean the person must be a lonely, solo leader.  Two of my senior staff report directly to me and I trust both of them completely and value their judgment.  Beyond them, there is a leadership team (and also staff who join us based on the topic of discussion).  Why should I rely only on my own knowledge and experience when I have so much more available to me?

There are a couple of reasons why some leaders hold back from their staff:

• They may have a personnel issue or something that they don’t want to discuss with any staff.  Okay, but as you’ll see below, there are still other people you can discuss things with.
• You many think that not having the answers will make you appear weak.  You may be afraid of losing the staff’s confidence if you ask for their help.  If so, I think you’ve bought into the ‘heroic leader’ myth.  Business books and biographies almost always tell a story by focusing on one individual, as if their success was 100% from their own efforts and ideas.  I can recall only one book written about an heroic team, The Wisdom Of Teams.  That’s the exception.  All the other books focus on a single person because we want a hero, and heroes are supposed to be able to overcome obstacles by themselves.  But this is to put unrealistic expectations on yourself.  Roger Patterson, co-author of Leading from the Second Chair, sent me the text for his second book (not yet published) called The Theology of the Second Chair and in it he makes an interesting point.  Scripture shows that God appoints people to leadership, but these are all people with limitations well known to God.  Think about Moses and his poor speech.  God puts people around his leader who fill in for the leader’s shortcomings.  The leader is strong in what God wants them to do, and the team does the rest.
• Finally, be wary of pride.  For the sake of the ministry, accept the team’s wisdom.  James presided over the Council of Jerusalem and allowed his team to thoroughly discuss the Gentile question (Acts 15) even though he alone made the final decision.  Paul had his missionary team confirm the meaning of his Macedonian vision even though he knew what the dream meant.  It was a way of testing his interpretation.  So confide in your team.

Board

If you think you can’t talk to your staff, you can talk with your directors.  I am blessed with a board that is supportive while at the same time holding me accountable.  CCCC has a policy board, so my concerns are within my jurisdiction not theirs, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a ‘fireside chat’ with them.  We both know that they will not tell me what to do and that I am solely responsible for any decision I make, but we have had hours of fruitful discussions that have benefitted me greatly.  Just like my staff, they are dedicated to the success of the ministry, and because they hired me, they want me personally to be successful as CEO.  Why should I not have the benefit of their wisdom and experience too?

However, you might not want to talk with your board because you may feel your job is in jeopardy if you ask for input or show that you struggle with some things.  You certainly need to be a top performer, but it shouldn’t be a problem to seek counsel or to ask for prayer support.  Unfortunately we at CCCC hear about many conflicts between board and staff.  You can reduce board-staff conflict if you accept the board’s authority and if the board does good board orientation and development so directors know where the line is between board and staff.  The board should also recruit people who subscribe to the values, ethos, and strategic statements already in place and who are in basic accord with the senior staff person.  They don’t have to always agree with the leader, but they shouldn’t come on to a board already wanting to change basic elements of strategy or staffing.

Ministry Peers

I have developed relationships with ministry leaders across the country by simply visiting them in their offices, seeing them at events such as EFC’s Presidents Day, and otherwise being open to any opportunity to say “Hi” to them.  You may not have access to leaders across the country, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t know the ministry leaders in your area.  Pick up the phone, call someone and ask to have lunch with them, or ask to come and see their ministry.  You may have to juggle schedules, but sooner or later you can make a new friend who could be very helpful.

When I wanted advice on change management I called four leaders of ministries that had been through successful change, and all of them were willing to talk about their experiences and the lessons they learned.  While visiting some leaders out West a few weeks ago, conversation drifted around to a leadership topic that I’ve been wrestling with for a while and these leaders just opened up and shared their own experiences with that issue.  Leaders are willing to talk and help each other if you are willing to be vulnerable and share the issues that you are dealing with.

Sometimes you need someone else to see something that you can’t.  Moses had his Jethro who could see the quagmire that Moses had fallen into.  Wouldn’t it have been better for Moses if he had found out earlier about the problem and fixed it sooner?  He could have asked someone, maybe even Jethro, “Here’s my plan to lead the people of Israel.  Do you see any potential problems with it?”

The only thing that might hold you back from talking with your peers is pride.  Everyone wants to look successful at what they do, but the most meaningful and helpful conversations come about when the masks come off and people are real with each other.  It deepens your relationship from the relatively superficial “Hi, how are you?” stage to the much deeper level of feeling you really know the other person.

Your Spouse

I am richly blessed with a spouse who also has a business degree, is an accountant, and who has chaired some boards.  She understands leadership, strategy and all the other issues I deal with.  She is an invaluable support to me and offers great perspectives.  But even without her background, she would still be a tremendous support because:

• as my spouse, she is 100% committed to my success because both of us are bound together  in marriage, so my welfare is her welfare and she wants the best for me.  In this spirit, your spouse is not afraid to ask the tough questions, and will provide a clear-headed perspective.
• she doesn’t have to know business or governance to ask the right questions.  ”Have you prayed about this?” is one of those perennial favourites of hers!!!  Your spouse doesn’t need to have the answers, just the right probing questions to stimulate your thinking.

God

I’ve left God to last not because he is the least important but to end on the note that you must be talking with God because the ministry you lead is his, not yours.  This reminds me of a video that we show in the Stewardship I course – God’s Pie.  A person divvies up a pie with pieces for people representing his house, his cars, etc., but gives God nothing.  As he eats his own piece of pie while God watches, with an empty plate, the guy representing his German car says, “Dude!  He brrrrought ze pie!”

Well, dude, the ministry you lead is his, so consult with him about what you should do with it.  The key to Christian leadership is to recognize that you are a follower before you are a leader.  If you find yourself talking about leadership and then admitting as an afterthought that, “Well, of course, the Bible says that God is the ultimate leader of this ministry,” then God’s leadership looks pretty perfunctory.  His leadership needs to be fresh and vital every day.  If you only know the idea of God’s leadership rather than the experience of God’s leadership, I suggest you check out the spiritual disciplines and practices that are at the core of being led by God.  Take a spiritual formation course at a seminary or Bible college or pick up a good book such as Space for God: The Study and Practice of Spirituality and Prayer or Listening Prayer: Learning to Hear God’s Voice and Keep a Prayer Journal.  While you should go to God first, he is also the final resort after all human wisdom and advice has failed.

Conclusion

I hope you see by now that there are a lot of people around who could support you in ministry.  There is no reason to feel lonely and unable to talk to anyone.  Take the initiative and go see someone right away.  And if you have anything to contribute to this discussion, I’d love to hear from you.

Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble
when you’re perfect in every way.
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
‘cos I get better looking each day.

To know me is to love me
I must be a heck of a man.
O Lord it’s hard to be humble
but I’m doing the best that I can.

God kept me humble today in a very funny way, and as I thought about humbleness this equally funny song came to mind.

Here’s the set-up.  I met a man and his wife a few weeks ago.  I did not know them.  He says he’s known of me for some years, and it is now time that we met.  He invites me to come to his office in the heart of the financial district of Toronto.  I discover later that he and his wife have a thriving financial business, support a number of Christian ministries, and are very highly thought of by people whose opinions I greatly respect.  So I want to make a good impression and live up to the good image he has of me.

Fast forward to today.  

This rube from Elmira ventures into the centre of financial power in Canada. 

I go to his office.  It is very high up and very elegant.  Nice plush chairs, lots of wood, subdued lighting.  You get the picture, not ostentatious but pleasant.  As I walk into the meeting room, I go to get a pen out of my pocket and realize it is in two pieces.  I try to screw them back together in my pocket, but can’t get the pieces together.  So I forget about it. 

He sat across the narrow table from me. 

He said some very wise things, and I went into my thinker’s pose, cradling my face in my left hand – resting my chin on my thumb with my forefinger on my cheekbone and my middle finger curled under my lip.

I had an itch under my nose.  Surreptitiously I rub my upper lip with the side of my finger.

He asks me a great question, and I take up my pondering pose, with my forefinger and thumb on my chin.

I touched my face a few more times for various and sundry reasons.

His wife comes in to greet me, chats for a few minutes and then leaves.

The meeting is over, he walks me out and thanks me for coming.

I go to the washroom.  As I wash my hands, I look up in the mirror and…

HORROR OF HORRORS!!!

I have ink all over my face!

Yes, I hadn’t noticed until now when I turn my left hand over that my fingers and palm have ink all over them.

When I did my thinker’s pose, I got a bruise on my cheek and the beginnings of a chinstrap beard.

When I scratched the itch, I drew a moustache on my face!

When I did my pondering pose, I got a Van Dyke beard.

And this very gracious, classy husband and wife said nothing!  Either they hid their amusement or, in the low lighting, they didn’t notice what was happening. 

It sounds like a Candid Camera skit - how does an innocent bystander respond when a person unwittingly defaces their own face?

At this point, I could be mortified, give up on life, crawl away and never show my face again (marked or unmarked!), living the rest of my life in humiliation, letting this moment be the defining point in my now miserable and squandered life.  Or, I could choose differently!  I could choose to see the humour in the moment, laugh at myself, and make hay with a terrific story that now goes into my speaking repertoire to entertain and delight thousands over the next 30 years, go on and live a happy life full of laughter and accomplishment, forever being flooded with healthy endorphins when someone points at me and says, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who inked his face?”  Everybody needs to be able to laugh at themselves and not take themselves more seriously than they ought (Romans 12:3). 

As for me, I say “Oh Lord, it’s far too easy to be humbled!”

So I’ve told a story on myself.  Now it is your turn!  What is the funniest thing you’ve ever done to embarrass yourself?  Maybe you couldn’t laugh at it then, but we can certainly laugh at it now.  And I hope that in hindsight, you can too.

When a leader requires without relating, the leader is seen as autocratic, demanding, hard-nosed and a bunch of other not-so-nice attributes.  When a leader relates without requiring, not much happens, but everyone has a really good time as the ship goes down.

I suspect that some leaders feel the tension between requiring and relating and struggle with doing both.  Some leaders may have difficulty with the relating part, believing that if things get mushy and touchy-feely the organization will fall to pieces.  And other leaders may not have the intestinal fortitude and confidence to insist on performance, so they avoid confronting poor performance in a misguided attempt to be nice.

This leader made two points about R&R that should help you lead with both strategies.

1. Don’t settle for an either/or approach to the two Rs.  The concept of requiring and relating, of demanding performance while at the same time showing care and compassion, is thoroughly biblical.  John 1:14 says that Jesus came “full of grace and truth.”  Randy Alcorn, in The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance, shows how Jesus demonstrated grace towards other people while at the same time not compromising the truth at all.  He welcomed the woman caught in adultery, but also said, “Go and sin no more.”  Grace is like relating, and truth is like requiring.  Jesus showed how grace and truth work together seamlessly to produce his desired result: they drive people to a decision point – will they, or will they not, live for God?  Requiring and relating can likewise co-exist in your leadership style to produce your desired results – accomplishment of your ministry’s mission.  So don’t be squeamish about insisting on performance, and don’t be shy about building strong relationships with your staff.
2. Requiring performance by clearly setting out the expected activities and results is simply good stewardship.  I thought this was a brilliant insight, connecting performance with stewardship.  After all, if you had a program that did not perform well, you’d either cancel it or redesign it to perform better.  You wouldn’t knowingly continue a program that was inefficient or ineffective, would you?  Of course not.  So why would you knowingly put up with inefficient or ineffective performance?  Both programs and salaries are funded by donors who expect you to make good use of their hard-earned donations.  And as a leader in ministry, you are accountable to God for good stewardship of everything entrusted to you.

But employees are accountable for good stewardship too.  Any paid worker in Christian ministry has two kinds of stewardship to think about with respect to their incomes.  First, in their personal capacities, they are to be good stewards of the cash they receive.  That is the normal way to think about stewardship.  But second, in their work capacities, they are to be good stewards of the time they traded for their income.  I don’t often hear people talk about stewardship of their work time.  Most often when stewardship of time is discussed, it is in the context of volunteer service.  But every person should think about how they are using their work time and ask the question, “Am I right now being a good steward of the time I have sold to my employer?”

And if leadership needs to help some people become better stewards of their work time, then that too is good stewardship on the leader’s part.  If we don’t address performance issues in order to be nice, well, just hear what Randy Alcorn has to say about that!  According to him, we’ve redefined Christlike to mean “nice” and with that definition, Jesus himself wasn’t always Christlike, because he confronted people with their sin.  Requiring that work standards be met may not always be seen as nice, but done well it is good stewardship.

In Shepherds After My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions And Leadership In The Bible, Tim Laniak discusses the protection, provision and guidance that the Lord gave to Israel while he led them through the wilderness.  These three words are a pretty good description of leadership responsibilities, but it is the word guidance that I think is most closely related to the R&R style of leadership.  There are three Hebrew verbs used in the Bible that are translated ‘to guide.”  The three nuances Tim gives these words are:

1. gentle leading (which is shown in several verses as the Lord carrying Israel in his arms, or leading the nursing ewes of his flock);
2. leading, even against the will of those being led; and
3. capable, visionary leadership guiding a group toward its destiny.

Perhaps the best way to encapsulate what is meant by Require and Relate is that leaders should provide gentle leadership guiding people towards their common destiny, even when some prodding is required.

By the way, on a completely different topic, Alcorn’s book has a statement that just leapt off the page at me.  As a bonus thought, here it is:

“Most sinners loved being around Jesus.  They enjoyed His company, sought Him out, invited Him to their homes and parties.  Today most sinners don’t want to be around Christians.  Unbelievers tore off the roof to get to Jesus.  Sometimes they crawl out the windows to get away from us!  Why is that?”

Alcorn asks a great question that we all should carefully consider.

First impressions are especially important because they form lasting impressions and can affect whether you will even have a relationship or not.  And if you do start a relationship, they will determine whether you get off to a good start or a rocky start.  You can overcome a rocky first impression, but it is difficult and takes time.  No one wants to shoot themselves in the foot at their first encounter, yet so many of us do by the way we present ourselves to other people.  Two PhD’s have done extensive research to analyze what goes on in that critical first meeting.  Their advice applies not only to first impressions, but to every continuing relationship you have.  They wrote about their findings and recommendations in First Impressions: What You Don’t Know About How Others See You.

You can get the key points of their book free from their website.  (The authors reproduced certain pages from their book for people who don’t like to mark up their books.)  The book is easy to read, filled with case histories and references to studies that prove the points they are making.  It provides great suggestions for what to do to make a great first impression.  The authors say there is no one right way to make a good impression and they are not trying to mould you into a specific personality.  What counts, they say, is that the impression you make reflects who you really are.  When you present the best of who you are, you are making the right impression for you. 

However, we often do things that we think will make a good impression when in fact others see what we are doing in a very negative light.  For instance, you might think that by asking the other person lots of questions you appear interested in them, but they will likely perceive you as private and controlling because you are revealing nothing about yourself and you are unilaterally directing the conversation. 

I’m sure everyone will find something they can do to improve their first impressions.  I found several.  For example, years ago I read that looking into a person’s eyes is too personal, too intense, because they are the “window to the soul.”  The advice was to briefly look a person in the eyes and then look somewhere else on or near their face.  In this book, they say that making such little eye contact (which you may think is normal and respectful) will make you appear to others as rejecting, uninterested, shy and awkward (ouch!!).

The book opens with a review of the psychology of first impressions.  If you are like the average person, the authors say that you are usually concerned with how you feel about yourself, how you feel about the other person and how the other person feels about you.  However, your primary concern should be how the other person feels about him or herself as a result of having met you.  The authors also discuss the four “social gifts” that should be something you give to the other person in your first contact. 

The bulk of the book is a description of the Seven Fundamentals of a First Impression.  This begins with how accessible you appear to be and progresses through showing interest in the other person, the appropriate subject matter for your conversations, the degree of self-disclosure that suits the occasion, your perspective on things and so on.  The last few chapters will help you apply their recommendations.

After reading the book, I was standing in line at Tim Horton’s in the suburbs of Elmira (that means, the industrial section on the way into town) and I listened to the conversations going on around me and it was really neat to be able to identify some people who were doing really well and some who should read the book. 

Elmira, for those who don’t know, is a town of 12,000 people with a rich Old Order Mennonite heritage and is known across Canada as the national headquarters of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities.  Okay, I have dreams of grandeur.  Elmira is the location of our one and only office!  But Elmira is also the place where Malcolm Gladwell grew up.  He’s the author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success. 

Here’s a photo of the view from my old office window (in November 2008 we moved down the street to the building at the top right of the photo that has a white stripe near its roof).

Yes, we still hear the clip-clop of horses!  Another touchpoint with days gone by.

Doris Goodwin, a Pulitzer prize winner, wrote Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln to show how Lincoln assembled a team of long time rivals to make the Cabinet that would get the country through the Civil War.  Not only were the teammates rivals of each other, but they were also all Lincoln’s rivals too!  I’ve since read that Barak Obama loves this book and it is clear in his choice of cabinet members that he is following Lincoln’s strategy pretty closely.

I’m not sure if Lincoln’s team-building strategy is necessarily the best one to use because there is debate about its success.   However, what every leader should consider emulating is Lincoln’s gracious approach to dealing with people, a leadership style that helped him recruit whoever was best able to help him accomplish his goals.  I’ll give some examples below.

Since Goodwin researched not only Lincoln’s papers but also those of his rivals, she can tell you what Lincoln was thinking, and what the others were thinking at the same time.  You will appreciate Lincoln’s leadership wisdom all the more as you see how he overcame the different personal agendas and got his team focused on the good of the nation.

The book is about more than just leadership.  It is a fascinating history of the Civil War.  I did not know that some slave-owning states stayed in the Union and fought for the North.  I also didn’t know that the war wasn’t about slavery until it was halfway over.  And Lincoln’s assassination was just one of three coordinated assassination attempts planned for that night.  The Vice President’s assassin chickened out at the last moment, but the Secretary of State was very seriously wounded and nearly died.

Goodwin’s book is also a political thriller as you follow the backroom negotiations that took place as the Republican party was cobbled together from many different parties including the Whigs (Lincoln’s original party) and the incredibly named Know-Nothing Party.

But most of all, A Team of Rivals is a leadership book.  Rather than a how-to book, Goodwin tells the story of Lincoln’s life and allows the reader to draw out the leadership lessons.  I’d like to share some of the lessons because they are profound, they should inspire you to a higher level of leadership, and I hope to entice you to read the book yourself.

• Lincoln led by principle and kept his major goal as the only goal.  Time and again complex decisions were easily made as he stayed with basic principles.   In 1855 he needed 51 votes in the Illinois legislature to become a senator.  After 9 ballots, Lincoln had 47 votes and knew that was all he could get.  The Democrats wanted to compromise on slavery, so Lincoln gave his 47 votes to a candidate who only had only 5 votes but who shared Lincoln’s slavery position.  Lincoln’s generosity gained him a friend who would later be a help to him.
• Lincoln was so impressed by the skills of a lawyer who humiliated him in a court case that a few years later Lincoln made him Secretary of War.  Lincoln knew this man had the ability to do what was needed.  Lincoln’s philosophy was “No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.”
• Lincoln made others feel powerful and valued.  Frederick Douglass said, ”Perhaps you may like to know how the President of the United States received a black man at the White House.  I will tell you how he received me — just as you have seen one gentleman receive another.  I tell you I felt big there!”
• Lincoln never put others down, but always offered a way to save face.  While Lincoln was patient, he insisted on performance and moved people out of their positions, but always giving them a way to exit gracefully.  He took quick, direct action only to protect the presidential authority when people overstepped and made decisions that were the president’s alone to make.
• Lincoln did nothing “off the cuff”.  He was a masterful strategist who made sure he understood public opinion and the deeper trends that affected society.  He knew how far he could push the public at any one time and was willing to take a step at a time and wait for public opinion to catch up.  He carefully researched the issues and tested his speeches until he had the most persuasive speech possible.  (The story of the Gettysburg Address being written on an envelope on the way to the speech is just that – a story.)  Lincoln spoke from the heart with conviction and told compelling stories that people could easily relate to.  His goal was always to persuade people to adopt his goals.
• Lincoln valued healthy debate, so he always picked the best people, whether or not they were his supporters.  He made his own decisions, but only after hearing all the views.
• Lincoln had such a profound sense of self-assurance that he could withstand an endless barrage of criticism.  He frequently forgave people, even his own Cabinet members.
• Finally, Lincoln was acutely aware of his own emotional needs and made sure they were met.  He relaxed with people, told jokes, attended the theatre, read poetry and went to the frontlines several times because visiting the troops always revived his spirit.  In spite of the crushing burden of the war, Lincoln found ways to keep himself fresh and in good spirits.

One change that would improve the book is to have a ‘cast list’ in an appendix with some high level descriptions of each person.  The cast of characters is large enough, and the information about them is detailed enough, that it is hard to keep them all sorted out.

Goodwin’s thesis would have been strengthened if she had dealt with the issues and examples raised by those who do not think Lincoln’s Cabinet was a strong team.  The way the book is written, it sounds like an interesting idea (picking rivals for your team) but not a proven idea.  Readers will feel they are on solid ground when it comes to Lincoln’s example of interpersonal relations, but that they are on shakier ground when it comes to assembling your own team of rivals.  We know that value of having multiple viewpoints at the table, but has this idea of a team of rivals been replicated successfully?  Goodwin doesn’t say.  Perhaps Obama’s Cabinet will be the test.

Happy reading, and let me know what you think of this book.