Category Archives: leadership

Inadequacy versus the Peter principle

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In a previous post, my attempt toward brevity about inadequacy proved to be inadequate. A discerning reader asked, “What about the Peter principle”? Another said, “In my experience far more damage is done by those who think they are competent but are not. They boldly pursue strategies which are poorly planned and do much damage. They are not insecure but instead are overconfident.”

Based on the reactions, we need to dig deeper into the Peter principle and the issues of incompetence and inadequacy. I’ll admit this post is a bit unpolished, but if I delay getting a response out, I’ll miss the moment.

According to Wikipedia, 

The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to “a level of respective incompetence”: employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent.

The entry goes on to say that Peter’s book by that name was intended to be satire, but his principle has endured to explain any shortcoming in management. 

Let’s look at the core comparison and how the principles I was discussing differ.

Incompetence

The tag of “incompetent” is often used to imply someone is totally unfit for a responsibility, but in reality, someone who has been appointed to a role has clearly demonstrated some level of competence; the level of promotion is simply not the right fit. As Wikipedia’s entry goes on to say, “skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.” 

It can be a situation where the competencies at one level simply weren’t applicable at the next. I’ve blogged before about how general administration doesn’t necessarily flow out of line management because the skills are so different (see The ladder for generalists and What gets you there won’t get you here). Promoting for an administrative position requires defining specific competencies for a role and then watching for indicators that an individual possesses them or has an aptitude for them. Those indicators may actually be stronger at the next level down rather than the level immediately below the position in question. Or available in a lateral position, perhaps in a different form. 

There’s always a level of guess work whether someone will be able to match the competencies required at the desired level of responsibility. And that leads to the examples we so often think of: someone promoted to a position for which they lack the competencies to succeed.

Inadequacy

According to Wiktionary, this refers to a sense of falling short of what is enough; deficient or insufficient for a particular role. In a leadership context, this gap between performance and expectations could be related to capabilities and skills (incompetence), but could also stem from other factors: inadequate resources, tools, support or effort. It can be circumstantial or temporary; someone can be adequate in some areas but inadequate in a specific moment, perhaps under a pressure situation.

Let me give an example of situational inadequacy. I think we can all remember typically-strong leaders struggling during Covid. Many felt deficient or, perhaps with forward thinking, deferred the burdens of leadership during that crisis. After all, any decision made by pastors, CEOs or political leaders led to heavy criticism—then and even now as political vendettas are enacted. I think of Covid leadership along the lines of “dog years.” Each one aged us at least double the normal rate.

In the best of times, leadership is an impossible task. In Leading with a Limp, Dan Allender points out the unreasonable expectations most people have for their leaders: physically attractive, charismatic public speakers, humble and tough, “yet we want him to tear up over a sad story and be sentimental on Mother’s Day” (27). Many potential leaders see the expectations and costs and decide to opt out because they either don’t feel they measure up, or don’t want the cost. 

There are a host of articles on a rising trend of Gen-Zers refusing to aspire to leadership positions. They call it “conscious unbossing.” As Simon Sinek is fond of saying, if it’s one or two people, they need to change. But if it’s a whole generation, we need to pay attention to their demands.

Reluctance

Allender wouldn’t disagree with their conclusion to avoid leadership. He says that “flight is the only sane response to the offer of a leadership position.” But rather than letting that be the final word, he argues that reluctance is a valuable quality in a successful leader. 

“When we’re reluctant to lead, doubting ourselves and our call, we are ripe for growth as a leader” (15), Allender says. “Why does God love the reluctant leader? Here is one reason: the reluctant leader is not easily seduced by power, pride, or ambition” (18). Reluctance leads to humility; the leader is forced to depend on God, gives away power as a way to share the risks and sets up successors to surpass herself without feeling threatened. 

Throughout Scripture, God calls and equips leaders who initially decline the role, but he often makes specific promises or provisions to help make that man or woman successful. Those of us who are developing leaders, planning for succession or hiring a manager should consider what resources, tools and support are needed to give confidence to a leader who sees himself as inadequate. (This is a big topic on this blog. For a couple of examples, see Why reluctance part 1: fear of failure and Lending your influence)

What if they are actually incompetent or inadequate?

What happens when an “incompetent” person believes he is competent? Or someone believes he has what it takes but clearly doesn’t? Blind spots and overconfidence are easy to develop without intentionality in gathering feedback. Here are some ideas:

  • Before you lead others, start with self awareness. There are tools like the Johari Window and 360 reviews that can help you evaluate yourself. See Romans 12 – self awareness for more.
  • When taking a leadership position, make sure you have at least one person you trust who has been given permission to tell you what you can’t see and perhaps don’t want to hear. I unpacked this one in Suspect yourself.
  • If you’re preparing to appoint someone to leadership, make sure they can manage themselves first (and Paul would add, those closest to him – see 1 Tim 3:4). 
  • And if you’re overseeing another leader, watch for indicators of overconfidence while also developing channels to hear early feedback from their direct reports.

In my experience, a truly-inadequate leader is either appointed prematurely, out of desperation or by default, whereas an incompetent leader may have been appointed for other reasons than qualification for the job. For instance, success in previous jobs. In some hierarchies, it can be a situation of “next man up” based on seniority and experience. Or someone presents an image in an interview or CV that they can never live up to. Whatever the cause for an inappropriate promotion, the impact on direct reports and the unit being led is the same: a poor-fitting leader hurts a team or organization through his or her incompetence. 

In addition to hurting others, keeping a person in a poor-fitting role can destroy him. It can erode his confidence and set back his development irreparably. Obviously, while God has used many inadequate leaders, it only works when they realize their weakness and lean heavily on the God whose power is a game changer in making us sufficient. 

I hope it’s obvious that courageous action needs to be taken quickly to limit the damage.

Three case studies

1. Recall the first episode of Band of Brothers, when Easy company leaders came to realize that Captain Sobel’s incompetence was likely to get them killed when the shooting got real. He was extremely effective at pushing a unit to high levels of physical and mental fitness, discipline and logistics, but he was completely deficient at field combat and tactics. He should never have been promoted, but he was caught by surprise when his men rebelled. When he was removed from his position and moved to providing parachute training, he did an excellent job, and even made it into combat at a later point. The Wikipedia article shows a mixed review of men who served under him, including some who credit him for Easy Company’s toughness and cohesion.

2. Most people would say that the apostle Paul had the skills and competencies needed to fill his particular role in the fledgling first-century church. His training and preparation was impeccable, he was articulate and bold, and he had the ability to engage a wide range of audiences—both Jews and Greeks, and both poor and powerful—as he argued the tenets of the faith. It was as if God knew none of the 12 apostles had the specific competency set that was needed to grow the church, so he specifically called one of his enemies (Acts 9).

Yet, as Alistair Begg and Allender argue, Paul never forgot that he had killed Christians in his previous life and was very conscious of his current tendencies—to the point he called himself the “chief of sinners” (1 Tim 1:15). He spent a lot of time in his two letters to the Corinthians discussing his insufficiency. Here are two specific passages to reflect on:

Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. (2 Cor 3:4-5) 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:9-10)

Allender’s conclusion is that “Paul did not hide his failures or defend or rationalize his choices. He led in a way that required grace to be more real than his competency” (53).

3. If inadequacy is a reality, not just a perception, a reluctant leader is more likely to be unashamed to walk away. If power and ambition weren’t the goal, the acceptance of a job mismatch is much easier. I recently observed this myself when an organization CEO approached his board in the middle of his first term and proposed stepping away because he didn’t believe he could deliver what the organization needed at this moment. It’s an unfathomably bold step, because it gives the impression that both the individual and the board failed. He had been appointed after an exhaustive search, after all. But when someone cares far more for the organization and the people he leads than his own reputation and how he might be perceived, the organization and the people benefit. I have huge admiration for the courage it took to acknowledge and accept this conclusion.

Of course a midstream correction has a cost, but consider the alternative: what if this leader felt he was adequate for the position while failing to deliver? What would be the cost if a leader stayed who wasn’t what they needed?

Wrapping up

That is my broad attempt to explain the difference between inadequacy and the Peter principle. No doubt there are gaps in my logic; in fact, there are a number of threads that could use more unpacking or deeper thinking. Let me know your thoughts about reluctance, the Peter principle and feelings versus realities of inadequacy.

Related blog posts:

If everyone is insecure, what can we do about it?

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This post continues from my previous post, The root of insecurity.

What’s the solution to the prevalence of leaders operating out of insecurity? Spotting it in the leader of a country or company is no better than being an armchair warrior; we can’t do anything about it, and may not be in a position to raise our concerns in a constructive manner. So in this post, we’ll focus on what we have control over. We’ll look first at our own leadership and then discuss how to help develop those we supervise or influence.

Leading ourselves

Chip Ingram says the solution to insecurity is unmasking. In other words, being honest and bringing doubts, anxieties and weaknesses into the light. The starting point is to be honest with ourselves about what’s driving our behavior or reactions. Leading oneself is the first job of leadership, so reflect on the following questions: 

  • Which of the behaviors in my last post are you most tempted toward?
  • The last time you exhibited one of those symptoms, why do you think you responded the way you did?
  • When is the last time you overreacted to something? What triggered that response? 

To lead yourself, it’s important to understand your weaknesses, your tendencies toward sin and temptation, and the dark sides of your strengths.* 

Second, you need to be honest with God. As much as we might fault Moses for his excuses and finally begging God to send someone else, that honesty was a great starting point. Not for God, who already knows it. If he’s called us to something, it’s with full knowledge of the complete package of the one he has called. 

Acknowledgement of our insecurities keeps us in a strong dependent posture. When Moses says it out loud, it’s an important baseline in his relationship with God. Realizing he knows the worst about us invites new levels of unpretentious intimacy. It then leads to a greater appreciation of our position as children of God, loved and accepted without having to earn that status. 

My mentor Sunder Krishnan once said in teaching about Isaiah 24,

To be loved by someone who doesn’t know our dark side isn’t much consolation. “If only they knew what I am really like” plagues us. Conversely, to be known for who we really are, and hence not loved, confirms our worst fears about ourselves, that we are intrinsically unlovable. BUT, to be truly known for who we are and still to be loved is an unbelievably valuable gift. It is this gift that God wants to give us when He, through Isaiah, calls us to in-depth exploration of our sin in all of its ugliness so we can hate it as we should and confess it.

That understanding of being “beloved” is a game changer in how vulnerable we can be with others. I’m still learning. Internalizing that truth was one of my focuses over the past year.

Leading others

Now you need to model vulnerability based on the work you’ve done in private. As Patrick Lencioni says in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, trust within a team is established through uncomfortable honesty, and a team cannot achieve vulnerability-based trust unless the leader goes first. Others will feel safe to be vulnerable if the leader is willing to risk losing face. So, rather than covering up, join Chip Ingram in refusing to play the game. Let your team know when you’re feeling insecure, or let them see the real you when you would normally put on a mask.

This is the primary focus of one of my favorite leadership books, Leading With a Limp. Dan Allender says,

Why do most leaders live in fear that they will one day be discovered and known, exposed and humiliated? They know they’re a mess, but they hope against hope that no one else will notice (56)…. The more honest I name what is true about myself, the less I need to hide and defend and posture and pretend (152).

There are a number of benefits, including these:

  1. Disrupting the downward spiral of hiding. “This is the strange paradox of leading: to the degree you attempt to hide or dissemble your weaknesses, the more you will need to control those you lead, the more insecure you will become, and the more rigidity you will impose” (3).
  2. Preaching grace through leadership. When leaders make their weakness clear, “it is through their weakness that grace comes to be magnified. Weakness is the big idea of the gospel” (54).
  3. Challenging others to honesty. “Why admit your failures publicly? First, doing so invites others—by the Spirit’s prompting—to look more honestly at their own need for forgiveness, freedom, and courage” (p173).

However, Allender warns that vulnerability is a big risk for a leader. “To admit we are foolish, weak, and in need of repentance gives the vindictive and self-righteous camp plenty of ammunition to turn against us and to turn others against our leadership” (160). It turns the common model of leadership on its head.

Here is God’s leadership model: he chooses fools to live foolishly in order to reveal the economy of heaven, which reverses and inverts the wisdom of this world. He calls us to brokenness, not performance; to relationships, not commotion; to grace, not success. It is no wonder that this kind of leadership is neither spoken of nor admired in our business schools or even our seminaries (p55).

So, count the cost, tread carefully, and proceed with courage! 

Second, it’s important to recognize the tendencies, biases and motivations of those you lead—what has shaped them, where they hope to grow and how well they’re dealing with others. It will help you interpret reactions that are out of character. Recognizing the different masking techniques of members of your team will enable you to support them well and develop their character.

When you see a direct report overreacting because of an insecurity, you can’t afford to leave it alone if it affects their work. Ignoring or overlooking it could lead to a bigger problem in the future. Pray for insight and gently ask if they know why they reacted that way. A foundation of care and vulnerability-based trust should allow them to open up. 

Wrapping up

Take a look at Hebrews 11, the so-called “Hall of Faith.” It’s noteworthy to see how many of these insecure leaders are given pedestals for their faith: Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Barak, Jephthah and the prophets. Their insecurities didn’t define them, and neither did their masks. God was able to use them just as they were to accomplish great things and to lead others well.

I admit I haven’t perfectly followed this advice, or at least to the extremes Allender promotes. However, to the degree that I’ve implemented this way of leading, I’ve seen remarkable results. Almost every time I’ve admitted weakness or sought forgiveness, I’ve seen trust strengthened and received grace I didn’t deserve while also releasing some of the burden of leadership. How about you? I’d love to hear about your attempts to put these ideas into practice.

* See The Dark Side of Your Strengths, based on the book, Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership

Related blog posts:

The root of insecurity

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How much damage is caused by insecure leaders?

So many behaviors in leaders can be traced back to a basic insecurity and the leader’s attempts to compensate for it. As I mentioned in my last post, Chip Ingram says there are weak and strong responses—an idea he credits to an out-of-print book by a Swiss Christian psychologist, Paul Tournier: The Strong and the Weak.

I’m not a psychologist, but let me try to use Tournier’s and Ingram’s thoughts to trace a few of the manifestations back to this core weakness. Rather than point at current-day figures, I’m going to draw on Scriptural examples and let you apply them to what you see in the world around you, whether it’s celebrities, political leaders or supervisors in your organization. Or in yourself.

Strong responses

Some cloak themselves by “powering up”:

  • Putting enormous effort into their appearance
  • Having an excessive need to count—how big their church is, how many people report to them, or how fast they’re growing
  • Gathering status symbols like cars, electronics or a network
  • Flashing wealth in various ways, including name dropping
  • Taking credit and seeking acclaim
  • Bragging and demonstrating arrogance
  • Aggression and intimidation through anger, threats, blaming and creating power imbalances
  • Other forms of attempts to control, such as manipulation and passive aggressiveness

A few Biblical examples stand out for me.

  1. Ahab is an abusive king featured in 1 Kings 17-22 who, along with his wife Jezebel, kills the Lord’s prophets and leads the nation into sin. But there’s one moment when Ahab opens up about his deep insecurity. When Naboth stands up to him and doesn’t let him push him aside, the king sulks and stops eating (1 Ki 21:4-6). Only Jezebel sees his vulnerable state and steps in with a brutal display of authority that keeps the mask intact for those under their thumb.
  2. In Isaiah 22:15-23, God calls out Shebna, King Hezekiah’s palace administrator, for his flashy chariot and for the tomb he’s building for himself. Was he insecure? He was an outsider, a foreigner appointed to a high position of leadership, and one possible meaning of his name is “uncertain” (Biblegateway Encyclopedia of the Bible). It seems likely that he tried to cover his imposter syndrome by projecting his status and through a clumsy attempt to leave a legacy.
  3. When we first learn of King Saul, he downplays his status (1 Samuel 9:19-10:1) and then hides in the baggage to avoid appointment as king (1 Sam 10:20-24). His insecurity presents as humility, but we soon discover a leader who has a weakness for people pleasing (1 Sam 15:24-30) and feels threatened when another is celebrated (1 Sam 18:7-9). His jealousy leads him to a vindictive hunt to kill David, his protege, and slaughters priests when they help him. 
  4. Jacob always comes in second place. He is a twin who fights unsuccessfully with his brother to get out of the womb first and then misses out on the favor of his father (Gen 25:22-28). His desire for approval leads to an over-competitive disposition and a lifelong tendency toward manipulation and deceit. He tricks his favored brother out of his firstborn birthright (Gen 25:29-34) and blessing (Gen 27), he bests his uncle in a battle of deceit (Gen 29-31), and he even wrestles with God (Gen 32:22-32). While his family members are all impacted by his actions, the worst thing is that he sets the stage for an entire nation (Gen 25:23, Gen 32:28, Gen 37, Hosea 12) who will wrestle with God.
  5. In the New Testament, King Herod demonstrates a similar pattern of jealous abuse of power as he tries to kill the newborn Messiah (Matthew 2:13-16). And Pontius Pilate demonstrates indecisiveness and fear of the people (Mark 15:1-15) that leads him to give in to crucifying the Messiah.

With those examples in mind, can you spot similar tendencies in some current-day leaders?

Weak responses

There is another, opposite way of cloaking insecurity, with so-called “weak responses”:

  • Presenting extreme humility, over-apologizing or perhaps demonstrating a victim mentality to gain sympathy
  • Withdrawing and pursuing isolation to avoid potential rejection, perhaps avoiding people or eye contact
  • Protective or superficial responses, to dodge introspection or disclosure
  • Defensiveness or avoiding feedback mechanisms
  • Deflection of any hint of depth through humor or sarcasm, or dismissing compliments
  • People-pleasing in a desire for validation or to avoid upsetting others. In leadership, this can come out in deferral of decisions or difficult conversations.

While there are plenty of examples in Scripture, this blog is focusing on those in leadership. Here are some examples from the Bible:

  1. Twice Abraham tells self-protective half truths to save himself, putting his wife Sarai in a risky position (Gen 12:10-20, 20:1-18). While he could rationalize his actions, because he had married his half sister, his actions undermine his credibility, cause his wife harm and bring plagues against innocent rulers of other nations.
  2. After Moses fails in his first attempt at leadership, he isolates himself in the wilderness—for 40 years!—leading sheep instead of people (Ex 2:11-15,3:1). When God calls him to a place of prominent leadership, he fights and fights that calling with multiple arguments, self-deprecating beliefs and even begging (Ex 3:11-4:13).
  3. Moses’ brother Aaron caves in to the demands of the people when his brother disappears for 40 days on Mount Sinai (Ex 32). He lets the people break loose, creates a golden idol that leads them to sin and abdicates responsibility when confronted with his role (Ex 32:21-25). His actions lead to a brutal punishment against the people he had been responsible for.
  4. Jephthah was a man forced into exile by his family because of his illegitimate birth until they needed a warrior to lead them as judge (Judges 11:1-11). His guarded response and negotiations for guarantees are understandable in light of his background, but his leadership is derailed by his rash vow even after the Spirit of the Lord came upon him (11:29-35). It reads like a clumsy attempt to negotiate with or even manipulate God. His six years as a judge are marked by internal wars.
  5. I could also mention Jeremiah, who told God all the reasons he couldn’t use him (Jeremiah 1:4-10), and Barak, who wouldn’t lead the people without help from courageous women (Judges 4:6-10).

Tournier says the goal of either strong or weak responses is to maintain distance or create a false image so no one will know who I really am. I need to keep people away because, “If you ever knew who I was, you wouldn’t like me.”

If we were all truly honest, how many of you readers and those you lead have this basic core belief? We all need to deal with the root of insecurity before it causes deep hurt.

This post is getting a bit long, so I’m going to split it. In my next post I’ll approach the question, if everyone is insecure, what can we do about it?

Related blog posts:

Inadequate, insecure and in charge

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For all my readers who are aspiring to high levels of leadership, I want to pull back the curtain and expose one of the biggest secrets about leaders. I share this, not to deflate high potential leaders, but to hopefully make the path more approachable.

In the eleven years I served as president of an organization, I regularly kept in mind an acronym I picked up over the years from a few different leaders. WIDIRIC stands for Woefully Inadequate, Desperately Insecure and Ridiculously in Charge. 

Woefully Inadequate

These thoughts come from Scottish pastor Alistair Begg, who gave a presentation at the Christian Leadership Alliance conference more than fifteen years ago. While I couldn’t find that presentation, I found another similar one on YouTube: Inadequacy: The Surprising Secret to Being Useful to God. 

None of us are equal to the task of leadership. Begg points out the amazing number of times the apostle Paul picks up this theme throughout his two letters to the Corinthian church. It’s clear Paul believed the secret to usefulness in ministry cannot be traced to any natural competence. It is only in leaning into our weakness and inadequacy that we find God’s strength (2 Cor 12:9-10), receive the Lord’s commendation (2 Cor 10:12,17-18), and see God produce results we couldn’t achieve on our own (1 Cor 3:6-8).

In those eleven years, I was constantly reminded of the irony that God chose a monolingual graphic designer to run a Bible translation organization. I have three letters after my name, but they aren’t much help in this organization: BFA. In half the situations I faced as president, I didn’t really know what to do. I constantly wondered whether I made the right choice, wore the right clothes, said the right things. 

And yet, I had a strong conviction that God had called me to, led me to and prepared me for this role. Realizing that I wasn’t sufficient in myself (2 Cor 3:4-6), I leaned into my collaborative style, surrounding myself with people who were smarter and more specialized than I was and fashioning a leadership team approach. I tried to approach leadership with a learning posture and dependence on God. Sure, he did use many of my strengths, but I was constantly aware that it was his power working through me that was my real hope of effectiveness. 

Desperately Insecure

This idea comes from American pastor and teacher Chip Ingram. You can read or listen to more of his thoughts at Everyone is Desperately Insecure.

Everyone is insecure, but some are better at masking it than others. Ingram says insecurity manifests in many different ways. Some withdraw and create distance from others, while some power up, boasting and intimidating others. All are ways to cover up or pull away out of fear of being unloveable or unworthy. “Strong responses” are probably more obvious in leadership positions, because people mistake bragging, testosterone and intimidation for leadership. But “weak responses,” such as defensiveness, deflection and people pleasing, are just as common.

Ingram tells the story of how, shortly after he launched his radio ministry, he was invited to attend an event sponsored by the National Religious Broadcasters in the US. He found himself in a room of Christian celebrities. With sweaty palms and heart racing, feeling completely out of place, he skipped the small talk and went straight over to his seat. 

To make things worse, he found out he was seated next to Chuck Swindoll. He said, “Picture how intimidating it would be to sit next to one of your heroes in a room full of ‘spiritual giants’ and you are the new kid on the block.” But after a few minutes, Ingram took a huge risk. He turned to Swindoll, introduced himself and confessed, “I’m real new to all of this. I’m really out of my league here, I don’t know what I’m doing and this is a very threatening environment. Do you think you could give me a few tips on how to handle myself and what to do?” Swindoll shocked him by admitting he felt the same way. In fact, he pointed out that most people in the room felt insecure as well. He took Ingram under his wing, and thirty years later, they’re still friends.

My natural tendency is not to open up about my insecurity, but hide it with an image of calm, unshakeable confidence. While I can demonstrate vulnerability, I curate my public admissions carefully while opening my indecision and doubts to very few, trusted confidants. It’s helpful to me to realize I have solidarity in my insecurity, which helps me see past the masks of others I am prone to compare myself with. In fact, I think insecurity is one of the most common weaknesses in leaders, and it’s likely the source of a lot of wounds leaders have inflicted on others.

Ingram points out that the way to defuse insecurity is by admitting it and refusing to play the game. He says the key is authenticity. The Bible is full of examples where God calls insecure people to leadership. One of my favorites is Gideon, who was completely open with God, revealing that he saw himself as the weakest link in a weak clan (Judges 6:14-16, my version). God then teaches him through a series of tests, and then a miraculous victory. His vulnerability made his example far more relevant to all of us millennia later. I’ll discuss some of other Biblical examples in my next post.

God can redeem that insecurity when we put down our fig leaves before God and others. Then do the deep soul work of understanding our security as children of God who are loved and accepted just as we are. And finally, step out in faith to follow God’s call with your meager offerings.

Ridiculously in Charge

Dr. Henry Cloud unpacks this idea in his book, Margins for Leaders, but you can find a shorter synopsis of this particular point here: Are You Ridiculously in Charge as a Leader?

In spite of all the flaws, the leader is “ridiculously in charge,” as Henry Cloud puts it. There are no excuses or blame shifting for the leader of an organization, company or church—nor for leaders at all levels. Everything in your arena of responsibility, no matter its size, happens either because you caused it or because you allowed it to happen. 

If you want a certain culture, you can create it while not tolerating undesirable actions or attitudes. If you want certain results, you can build a competent team of staff to accomplish it while holding everyone accountable to make sure it’s not undermined. 

As Moses learned from his father-in-law in Exodus 18, the larger the arena of responsibility, the more shared leadership is required. This increases complexity and requires techniques for delegating responsibilities and knowing what’s going on under your leadership. But it doesn’t change the fact that a leader owns everything: a team success, a failed initiative or a staff member acting alone. 

One way to take this phrase is that he or she is “totally” in charge. But Cloud’s memorable phrasing reminds me that, however I might feel about the absurdity of my appointment to the position and my suitability and qualification for the job, I need to own the fact God has placed me here. 

WIDIRIC

This acronym is a constant reminder that, like any humans in roles of high responsibility, I am inadequate for the task in myself. Like all humans, I have to overcome my fears and fight the instincts to cover up my insecurities with unhealthy behaviors. And it’s a call to courageously step up and take the responsibility of leadership seriously (Rom 12:8 NLT). God is still calling people to ministry and leadership who feel unqualified, but are willing to give it their best shot and learn from their mistakes. God’s promise to Moses and Gideon was the same as it is for us: “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12, Judges 6:16, Matthew 28:20). The best leaders learn how to depend on the Holy Spirit and the power of God to work in them and through them. 

It comes down to this: all of us have fears and failures to overcome. The gospel is the only real credential any of us has for ministry. It’s who God is, not who we are, that is the difference-maker.

Follow up blog posts:

Celebrating a one-of-a-kind

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I sometimes wonder if people suspect I married Becky just so I could gain her parents in the deal. They are one of the best gifts she ever gave me. My second father, Bill MacNabb, passed away last week, and I’ve struggled to articulate an appropriate tribute for him. I’m going to do it as a leadership tribute.

I think what most impressed me was Bill’s faith and humor through a life of storms that would have shaken anyone. He had a one-of-a-kind disease. For over thirty years his doctors tried on diagnosis after diagnosis, sometimes naming diseases that were usually found in women or only diagnosed at autopsy. One doctor ended up calling it “MacNabb’s Disease.” Turns out all the symptoms can be tied to Agent Orange exposure in the Vietnam War. He gave his life in service to his country. If his life had ended back then, however, he wouldn’t have enriched as many lives as he did.

While he grew up without a model for fatherhood, he became the loving, doting father to his girls that he never had himself. He put a lot of energy into creating games for them and forging a lifetime of deep memories. He made sure they knew they were loved. When his daughters each found their life partners, he adopted them as one of his own kids, once they attempted the impossible feat he designed as a test.

No one needed to follow Bill. He was a titled leader—a president, chairman of the board, an elder, and a patriarch of a growing clan—but he didn’t require a title to lead. He had the courage to forge a path when there wasn’t one blazed before. He was willing to do what he wanted to do even if no one followed. Yet I think you’ll see that many followed him.

Finding the humor

Most will remember my father-in-law for his humor, in spite of all his hardships. He joked even if no one got it, because he wanted to make himself laugh. He often cracked himself up, and even if those around him didn’t get it, his laughter was contagious.

When painting became an outlet during a season of brain-diseased-episodes, he created art that only a mother would love. Or only the artist could appreciate. His best friend told him, “Bill, you’re an artist in your own mind.” Bill compounded the joke by scribbling overpriced valuations on the back of his most ridiculous paintings. One Father’s Day years later, when he was in his right mind, we pulled out his art collection from the attic. He hadn’t seen many of these pieces in a long time, and as he saw them he began to laugh. Ugly laughing—tears streaming down his cheeks and his face frozen in a grimace as he struggled to breathe.

He was often willing to offer himself as the butt of his own jokes, like his tongue-in-cheek alter ego, “Mr. Fix It”—a willing hero who was always depicted applying the wrong tool for the job. He was equally willing to roast his brothers-in-law or send them a two-page invoice after their family enjoyed his hospitality. Or to sacrifice his sons-in-law for comedic purposes. As his first daughter was about to marry me, he said at the rehearsal dinner, “I don’t think of this as gaining a son. I think of it as losing my shirt.”

He was also an author in search of an audience. He wrote because he had to, even if few would ever read his work. His written correspondence with his father-in-law is epic, even if written for only one person. As a former journalist, he wanted to publish, and he achieved that goal in 2019 with a book of extremely limited run. It seems perfect that there’s only one copy of his book available on Amazon right now, and there seems to be a bit of price gouging in play. Perhaps they think the author’s death is going to drive up demand in the resale market. Bill would be the first to find the humor in that.

First followers

It’s easy to say a one-of-a-kind doesn’t need others, but that’s actually untrue. The first to follow someone are the ones who define that person as a leader. As John Maxwell once said, a leader with no followers is just taking a walk. Bill MacNabb could have just taken a walk out of step with everyone else, but something about him drew others to participate in his jokes, his writing and his artwork. He had a huge influence on all who knew him, and we wanted to walk at his pace. So let’s talk about his followers for a minute.

One way we participated was to provide an audience. We listened to Bill’s drafts or helped others realize when he was joking. He fed off the reactions to his dry wit or sarcasm. In one case, he concluded a eulogy for his best friend and walked away silently before returning to the microphone to say, “I usually get applause.” I can still see the funeral director shaking his head at the raucous response. Bill loved it when a message intended for one audience was unearthed. Such as a spoof video he created as sales manager for a heating and cooling company, when he explained how profit was lagging sales, and told customers, “If we had known you would have money left over at the end of the year, we wouldn’t have given you the prices we did.”

The audience also has a role to play. The greatest gift those around Bill could give him was to help him lift his jokes, his writing, his artwork to a level of absurdity. For instance, his kids created a local news video to showcase his journalistic ramblings after a tree exploded behind his house: “A tree explodes! News at 11!” Others created inspirational placemats featuring his Mr Fix It photo series. He knew he was loved when others laughed with him.

We further participate by preserving and celebrating Bill’s writings, artwork, jokes and stories. This week, his first followers have been mining his archives so we can share some of the best at the memorial service tomorrow.

Harnessing limitations

One of the things I’ll remember most about my father-in-law was the way his health-related limitations focused him. Rather than becoming a barrier, they helped him reprioritize. 

He proved able to change and grow, moving away from his workaholism of the years before I knew him to putting his people first throughout his presidency. Frankly, his limitations made him a great president and chairman. Bill was a humble servant leader who loved his company and every employee. He was also capable and competent, leading with wisdom and foresight. Most of his staff had no idea how often he used the couch in his office. If they only knew that his meetings and sales calls were often preceded by a daily ritual of reciting Psalms out loud on his commute so he would sound articulate by the time he walked in the doors. 

Retiring early upon his doctor’s advice gave him more time to focus on people. Bill was incredibly generous, participated in church stewardship campaigns, led the church’s Rock & Roll Evangelism Committee and spent time with his many grandkids—whether they were biological or lived on the street. He also got to know his neighbors during his frequent walks, sometimes taking breaks in front of their homes or dodging a thunder storm in their carports. He then included many of their stories in his second, self-published book. He and my mother-in-law helped build a remarkable community in their neighorhood: this week, there have been as many tears shed up and down his street as among his family.

To the very end, Bill never lost his sense of humor, and joked even when he could no longer speak. Even if he was in pain and visibly struggling with basic activities, if someone asked him how he was doing, his standard ironic response was, “Never had a bad day in my life.” His book title summarizes the reality. His life was lived boldly, with buckets of tears and pails of laughter.

Fashion the right people from the team you have now

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We’re continuing the idea that the wrong people can become the right people within the right culture, so take a look back at my previous post for the introduction. Now I want to ideate around the how.

With passion and a bit of conviction, I started drafting this blog post, but I’ve wrestled with it for at least five years. My first question was whether these ideas could actually work. I haven’t been entirely successful with my efforts, but I have seen each of these methods work in at least one person or team I’ve led, so I’ll share from personal experience where possible. My second question was how to talk about these situations while still honoring the people I have worked with. I trust I’ve walked that wire appropriately. 

This post is a bit long, but I want to unpack some practical ways you can use to put this idea into practice.

1. Change the context, change the person

In Topgrading, Brad Smart offers a warning about recruiting a high performer from another company, because you’re extracting her from the team and context that made her successful. So doesn’t it stand to reason that some people might be viewed negatively or perform poorly because of the team, systems and environment they’re in? Change the circumstances, and you may get a very different result. Why couldn’t you build a winning team by intentionally developing a new context around some high-potential but underperforming team members? 

A number of years ago I took over a sales team like that. I could see their potential, and their frustration and discouragement. I was convinced that, with a bit of work to advocate for their concerns, introduce servant leadership, and get them supporting each other, they were capable of delivering fantastic results. I didn’t know their core business, so there was no danger of me telling them how to do their jobs. I simply changed their environment. I worked for them, and morale and teamwork improved dramatically. They had a record-setting year.

2. Trace systemic causes

As I’ve described in this blog before, I have my own experience with working in a challenging environment… and contributing to that environment. I don’t point fingers, because I became a poor follower and poor performer. But that experience didn’t prevent a senior leader from taking a risk on me. He saw enough to invite me to work for him. His example has shaped how I view staff. Ever since, I’ve kept an eye out for opportunities to pay it forward. 

Sometimes when I hear of an internal staff member whose career path is floundering after a poor annual review, I will still consider him for a transfer into an open role. There are pretty good cost reasons to retain existing staff rather than start fresh. Here’s what I look for:

  • I try to read between the lines to see potential, as this senior leader did with me. 
  • I look into the circumstances—reading subtext in the annual review or finding oblique ways to explore the candidate’s team—and try to determine what other factors might be at play. 
  • I look to see whether his resume shows examples of past success and what might have contributed to those successes.
  • I consider whether the good or bad results were in part a product of the team he was in, or the style of supervision, or his working environment. 

If the setting I can offer resembles the ones where he has thrived, can I accept the risks of it not working out? 

3. Look for aptitude and attitude

Someone who has gone through a difficult experience will obviously show grief, sadness and anger over the experience. Negative attitudes themselves are not necessarily a deal-killer, because the person may have reason for that negativity. Perhaps she has been silenced, or overlooked, or passed over, or had too many supervisor handoffs. Unless that negativity has metastasized into bitterness, she may be able to turn things around. 

The primary criterion is this: has this person owned her part in her failure and made it a learning opportunity? Indicators of ownership include a commitment to reflection, acceptance of blame and expressions of regret over personal actions. You should also look for signs of hope. In Creativity, Inc., Ed Catmull suggests a couple of indicators that a person can make the shift. With one influential staff member at Disney Animation, he looked for “intellectual curiosity and a willingness to remake [her unit] in a different image,” along with an ability to think in new ways about her job (p160). It took time, but she was able to turn the corner.

With evidence of indicators like those, I occasionally take a risk on someone that others have written off.

4. Signal a change

Culture is notoriously difficult to change. But sometimes it only takes a small catalyst to make a dramatic change. It’s like the characteristics of yeast; the Apostle Paul pointed out that a little affects the whole lump of dough (1 Cor 5:6, Gal 5:9). 

I heard a recent example about an employee-owned airline, with an incredible culture, that merged with another airline. They inadvertently introduced some cynical yeast. The new employees began openly questioning the motivations of the company’s leaders, and it soon infected everyone. Loud whisperers, those who tend toward suspicion, or those who repeat every negative thought can bring the team down. 

Let me also add prima donnas who deliver results but poison the culture by failing to see their success as a team effort and demanding exceptional treatment. I once heard Dave Ramsey share how he told his best salesman, “The next time you’re late to work, bring a box.” When the puzzled man asked why, he responded, “So you can pack up your desk.”

The good news is that it doesn’t take much to send a powerful signal to the rest of the team. I’ve seen the extra spring in a staff member’s step when I released a longtime staff member from the team—someone who had been a thorn in her side, who seemed to get away with bad behavior. This reckoning signaled a change. The fact is that if you keep someone who is flaunting the rules, you’re likely to lose someone you want to keep. 

5. Plant a catalyst

If one or two wrong people can ruin a team, could it work the other way? Bring in one or two staff who exemplify the desired values to try to influence the entire team. However, it would be easy to lose new staff to the dominant culture, so this path only works if you protect them. I’ve seen this happen with young leaders, when the president backed them and provided a direct line to bring him their frustrations. Your backing should be consistent, but it may also need to be conspicuous; you may need to offer both carrots and sticks to those who would hammer down the nail that stands up.

Remember that some leaders are less visible, influencing from the back. So either a positive catalyst or a bad apple might not be the most obvious, up-front staff. It might be far more effective to drive change obliquely through a back-row leader.

And here’s a radical thought: What if you could win over your biggest existing critic? When Catmull and Lasseter went to Disney Animation, they identified a few surprising catalysts within the existing team: an HR director “steeped in the old ways of doing things” (p160), the head of a competitive division set up to leverage Pixar’s intellectual property (p160) and two people who had been let go by the previous leader (p167). All four already had influence, and when they started supporting the new direction, there was instant credibility.

How many staff would it take to create a tipping point for change? McKinsey & Company says it can take as few as seven percent of a team to drive a change. I would posit that a few of the right people can hit above their weight in moving the rest of the team.

6. Create pairings

Like a wine or coffee, where the notes are drawn out by the right food pairing, people can draw out the best or worst in each other. It’s about matching. Catmull says, “Even the smartest people can form an ineffective team if they are mismatched. That means it is better to focus on how a team is performing, not on the talents of the individuals within it.” (p 53)

Don’t think melody, but harmony. Cultivate diversity of viewpoints, because the wider the range of skills, experience, perspective, the more effective the blend can be. Then balance tensions, not letting one viewpoint win out, but highlighting and managing differences and strong opinions. 

How do you find the pairings? Watch for unexpected symbiosis between individuals, or better results when certain people work together. You can also get to know your people and learn their strengths, weaknesses and biases. Where a weakness is identified, how can someone else’s strength, or a combination of strengths, compensate? If you don’t have that strength in your team, it might provide a focus for your next catalytic and strategic hire.

Conclusion

So did it work for Ed Catmull? Shortly after he brought in his values and systems and made a few strategic staffing decisions, the Disney Animation team began an improved trajectory that led to two #1 films: ”Tangled” (2010) and “Frozen” (2013). Rather than replace the existing staff to accomplish this success, Catmull proudly says the studio ‘was still populated by most of the same people John [Lasseter] and I had encountered when we arrived'” (p170).

People are not pawns to be moved around or downgraded. Do we believe in people? Do we love people enough to try to draw out their best and have patience with them as they adjust? Do we use failure as an opportunity for learning? And when people are not performing, do we try to change their setting to give them every chance of success before assuming we should let them go?

Let’s make this a conversation. Do you agree or disagree with this line of thinking? Leaders, what has worked or not worked for you as you shift an existing team?

The wrong people can become the right people

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While some have tried to discredit Good to Great by Jim Collins, his ideas have had enduring impact. I’ve heard people casually refer to “the right people on the bus” who would never read that book. This expression has made it into mainstream culture.

There’s certainly merit to the idea of having the right people. As I build teams, I regularly consider what seats best suit existing staff and imagine the kinds of people I might add to build out a high-performing team. I’ve had some success in my teambuilding efforts and have had the privilege of working with some amazing teams.

But let’s be realistic: many of those in lower levels of leadership don’t have much choice over who they have on their team. Those who lead churches likely find the idea of choosing your own deacons and elders laughable. And almost every leader inherits a team that someone else assembled.

As a leader who has led a lot of change initiatives, I can tell you it would sometimes be easier to start fresh. No doubt there’s a time to clean house and rebuild with new people. But for most of us, the ideas of Jack Eckert, which Brad Smart unpacks in Topgrading, are unlikely. In fact, they feel fundamentally wrong.

I’m a firm believer in people. I believe all people are made in the image of God, and therefore they are more than pawns to be moved around. I believe that environments either support people in becoming who God intended, or erode their opportunities for success. I believe that the same Holy Spirit in me is also in the Christians that I lead. And I believe in the transforming power of that Spirit. I believe these things enough that I’m willing to be punished for implementing them in my leadership. (If you didn’t catch that, it’s one of Patrick Lencioni’s indicators of a core value.)

So in this post I want to consider the idea that the wrong people can become the right people within the right culture. 

This provocative leadership concept comes from a surprising source: an unconventional corporate leader. Reading Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. in 2015 inspired me. I wondered: if this people-first idea could be true for business, surely it should be even more true in ministry. If we really put people first, shouldn’t we give them every chance of becoming the right people? It’s much more difficult to shift a culture that’s in a downward spiral and a staff who seem to be contributing to that spiral. It certainly requires more of a leader.

Catmull’s conviction developed in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar Animation and installed Pixar’s creative executives over Disney Animation. Catmull says he and John Lasseter discovered a group of very creative people who were demoralized after a lengthy string of second-rate films. Disney hadn’t had a hit in 16 years and the once-great studio had stagnated since losing its founder. The question for these executives was whether to let all the staff go and bring in their own people or work with the existing staff.

In a radical experiment, they chose to work with who they had.

Could disillusioned, negative, change-averse people become motivated staff members, full of energy and creativity? I’ll answer that question in my next post, and consider ways to implement this idea.

Other bulls to ride

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“I have a feeling my career has just peaked.” I think a lot of first chair leaders feel the same as Colin Firth as he accepted the Best Actor Oscar for The King’s Speech in 2011. That’s why, in this final post in my series on exiting, I want to focus on the last part of this quote from Vineer Bhansali1:

“In bull-riding, once the eight seconds are up, there is no glory in staying on the bull… There will be other bulls to ride.”

The real goal of any bull rider is to ride again. He wants to walk away at the end of the day and get to compete next weekend.

But many leaders can’t help wondering, will there really be other bulls to ride? When leaders fall into the trap of thinking this is the only opportunity they’ll get, they’ll hold on too long. There are a number of fears that leaders face when they think about what’s next.

  • Fear they won’t get another opportunity. The fact is that, while you can prepare yourself for a CEO role, unless you “happened to have” the particular set of skills and experiences the board was looking for in a specific search process, you wouldn’t have been selected. So take confidence in the fact you were chosen, but recognize that a success in one CEO position does not necessarily mean you fit what another search team is looking for. It takes imagination and some humility to let go of the illusion that you are merely a CEO looking for a like-for-like position.
  • Feelings of inadequacy. Maybe there’s a bit of imposter syndrome, even after many years in the role. “If the board had only known… they would never have picked me.” One way this manifests is in an unshakable feeling that people give you attention because of your title, and people won’t love you if they don’t have a reason to. There’s also a sense of inadequacy around skills, because the top role requires a unique collection of general leadership skills, and line management requires a greater level of specialization and expertise. See The ladder for generalists for more on this subject.
  • Fear of irrelevance. Once you’re not in the first chair, you might miss:
    • being part of the inner circle
    • the idea of being needed2—perhaps the go-to fire fighter and problem solver
    • knowing everything that’s going on
    • the opportunities to leverage the position as a bully pulpit for speaking, for writing or advocating your favorite causes. 
  • Fear of loss. There are a lot of things to love about high level leadership, and some of them are addictive: power, attention, travel, accolades, achievement1, and that nicer desk, office or parking spot. They might be more challenging to walk away from than you would have admitted.

The issue of what’s next can be especially acute if an organization took the risk of appointing a young leader who still has some years left in his or her tank. You aren’t ready to retire, but you also don’t want to be that athlete who can never really discover who he is after his glory days ended with two-thirds of his life still remaining.

Leader, you need to hear this: You wouldn’t have gotten to the position you held if you didn’t have courage. You have overcome fears many times before, and you’ll need courage to face your exiting fears as well.

So let me try to present a few steps in your journey that might help you move ahead. 

1. Take time to grieve

You’re not wrong about some of your fears and the things you’ll miss. These losses are real, and require some time to grieve and adjust. You likely need some time off before starting into something else. You may also find that grieving and decompressing takes years. There are specialized resources available for leaders who are dismounting the bull.

2. Take time for reflection

In The Making of a Leader, Bobby Clinton3 says that phases of significant leadership maturity need to be followed by phases of life maturing. He encourages reflection to learn the lessons that spring out of a position of leadership: the mistakes he or she made, and lessons that can turn into a leadership philosophy. 

Then, before seeking a new position, do some self reflection around this question: Are you a leader in search of a team or cause to lead, or are you more committed to the cause than any particular role?

3. Bring that reflection and some imagination to your next role

There are a lot of other roles out there once you start looking for the next chapter in your career. Don’t think of this move as “downward;” some positions are more interesting, less stressful and more satisfying than the first chair role. You could consider a reset, such as a study program. Or you could leverage your experience with a lateral transfer to another organization or a mentoring/consulting role. You might return to a previous area of expertise or something you found enjoyable. Each option requires a mindset shift from the leader, and an organization willing to create the context to help you succeed. 

My next steps were driven first by my passion for the Bible translation and language ministry cause. I also had family considerations that required me to be a digital nomad, able to work from multiple locations. Choosing to focus has been the biggest challenge. The first chair leader gets involved in everything, and the variety and breadth can be addictive. Picking one area, or a small handful of areas to focus on, requires strong self awareness and discipline. But the first role you try doesn’t have to be permanent. I moved into one specialty that I’d enjoyed in my first-chair role, but I’ve now raised up a successor for my role and will be moving again to a new challenge.

As you consider the next bull to ride, here are some other questions to guide you.

  1. Can you get excited about another cause, and transfer your skills to leading in a different context?
  2. How will you adjust to working under a single supervisor, with less autonomy?
  3. Of all the things you engaged in, which ones gave you life and a sense of success, and which ones drained you? These are clues to help you pick a focus. 
  4. Did you see any squandered opportunities from your vantage point that might give you a specific challenge to dig into?
  5. As you imagine your next step, examine your motivations and your working style. What are you trying to escape and what conditions need to be in place to help you succeed?

Stepping out of the first chair doesn’t have to spell the end of your career, but it does require retooling and rethinking your attitude. Irving Berlin took a humorous view of this challenge in the movie White Christmas, when he penned the lyrics to, “What Can You Do With a General?”4 In spite of its age, I found it hit close enough to be poignant, but contained sufficient truth to be funny.

References:

  1. How To Ride A Bucking Bull: Stay Calm And Hang On…For Now, article by Vineer Bhansali, Forbes, Sep 19, 2018
  2. Skoog, Greer, and Doolittle. Lead with Prayer. Faith Words. 2024. p132.
  3. J. Robert Clinton. The Making of a Leader. NavPress. 1988.
  4. What Can You Do With a General?, from White Christmas (1954)

Leadership as bull riding series:

How long is too long?

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Let me follow up an obvious question regarding my last post. As Vineer Bhansali1 says about investing, “there’s no glory in staying too long.” But how long is too long for a leader? 

We likely all know a leader who stayed too long in a role. In remaining in place, he managed to steward the organization right past the point of high returns and ride it down the back slope of decline. As I was weighing my decision during my 2022 sabbatical, I had a conversation with another CEO who had recently refused a request by his board that he extend his time in office. He said he would rather leave with more to do than to hang on too long.

The question at hand is obviously contextual, so my advice is to define your own standard in advance. Ask yourself regularly what indicators will tell you it’s the right moment to leave. Regular check-ins will help you extricate yourself from initiatives, keep you light on your feet and make sure you can let go when it’s time.

So much has been written about this topic that I’ve wondered if I have anything fresh to add to the discussion, but this topic was an obvious void on this blog. So I will draw from my own experience and my personal indicators that it’s time to go.

1. If I know what needs to happen, but don’t have the energy to do it. I heard this one first from Andy Stanley. As I was debating my decision, there were several initiatives that came up in which I was motivated to take on the challenge, even if that meant I would have to extend my time in the role to really make the initiative successful. But I can recall a day that someone raised an issue that needed addressing, and I sighed. It was something previous leadership teams had discussed at length, and we thought we’d solved it. Now here it was again, and I didn’t want to deal with it. Alarm bells went off in my head.

2. When new challenges come up, my response is backward-looking. I remember hearing myself saying more than once in response to questions, “You should have seen how bad it was when I started! It’s so much better now.” In other words, when there’s an opportunity or need to change something, you’re looking back and trying to advocate for the change that was already made, not recognizing that you’ve been around long enough that your changes might need to be changed. More alarm bells. As Tom Robbins once wrote and Andy Stanley often repeats, “When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.”

3. Have I stopped doing the little things? I’ve collected a number of indicators that fall within this category, though I can’t recall the sources. 

  • You stop asking people on Monday how their weekend was. It’s a sign you’ve stopped caring about people. 
  • You stop doing the foundational things that built your success. For instance, attention to building strong meeting agendas, or finding opportunities to invest in young leaders. 
  • You begin disengaging or even disappearing during the day, perhaps caring more about some pet projects than about the core business. 

The biggest warning for me in the David and Bathsheba story (2 Samuel 11-12) is the line, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army” (11:1). David stopped his normal behavior and abdicated his responsibility to lead from the front. He then found himself with extra time on his hands that led him into sin. Was it entitlement? Was it boredom? While he couldn’t walk away from being king, you can walk away from your leadership role if you’re not doing the little things anymore.

My friend John Pellowe, CEO of the Canadian Centre for Christian Charities, has put in four five-year terms, and he recently decided to put in one more. His decision follows his usual rigorous time of discernment when he asks himself, his team and his board, What kind of leader does the org need for the next five years? Then he asks himself, Can I become that leader? 

I’ve always been impressed at this process, because it forces him to ask some deep-cutting questions, like these from Larry Putterman2:

  • Are you able to continue to reinvent?
  • Do you continue to have fresh ideas?
  • Is a different skill set necessary?
  • Can someone do the job better?

The important thing is that you think ahead to know what you’re looking for, and do regular self evaluation. Even better? Give permission to a few trusted advisors to tell you if they see warning signs. They may see things that fall in your blind spots.

References:

  1. How To Ride A Bucking Bull: Stay Calm And Hang On…For Now, article by Vineer Bhansali, Forbes, Sep 19, 2018
  2. 13 Reasons a Leader Knows It’s Time to Step Down, blog post by Larry Putterman

Series:

Don’t get married

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I’m continuing my series on leadership-as-bull-riding, drawing on a parallel investment-as-bull-riding idea articulated by Vineer Bhansali1. This quote is my springboard:

Plan now for the dismount: Finally, it is important to not get “married” to the bull. In bull-riding, once the eight seconds are up, there is no glory in staying on the bull… There will be other bulls to ride.  If nothing else, one should have an “exit strategy” in mind before mounting the bull.

There are a number of reasons why a bull rider might become affixed to a bull. Some are by choice, some are because of the challenge of timing your exit, and some are unintentional. For instance, a rider secures his stronger hand to the bull with rope based on the assumption that he can release it at his choosing rather than the bull’s. But according to Google, 1 in 20 bull-riding accidents result from the rider’s hand getting “hung up” in the bull rope. He simply can’t let go. 

Likewise, it’s very easy for leaders to become inseparable from a role, an organization or their initiatives, because of the depth of their investment. In my experience, it’s an even bigger risk if they are home-grown leaders who came up within the organization, because they feel greater ownership, and it’s more difficult to envision other bulls to ride.

No glory

I like the elegance of Bhansali’s words: there’s no glory in staying too long. In fact, there are numerous traps around longevity that make it difficult to step away when the time comes.

  • Entitlement. I promised myself when I started my role that I would not be a president who presides. Inspired by the warnings of Dr. Stephen Sample2, I wasn’t taking the role to be president as much as to do president. I saw it as a responsibility, not a title. But the longer you stay, the easier it is to settle in, to take things for granted, or to feel you deserve perks or recognition.
  • Tying identity to the role. As an Enneagram 3, I could write a book on this challenge. A particular focus during my sabbatical in 2022 was to develop other sides of my personality so I could say I am more than my job. If I’m not, leaving becomes an existential crisis.
  • Conflation of yourself and the role. It’s a problem when you reach the conclusion that you are the organization, and therefore, anything you want to do must be good for the organization. Conversely, anyone who opposes your plans must not want what’s best for the organization.
  • Loss of organizational autonomy. There is a point when an organization becomes conflated with the leader to the point the organization struggles to know what it would look like without that leader. The most obvious example would be founder’s syndrome, but it’s also possible with long-serving leaders who end up eclipsing the founder—such as Ray Croc at McDonald’s and Asa Griggs Candler at Coca-Cola.

Leaving is a radical way to break these traps, but regular evaluation around each one can help keep them at bay. Here are some ideas to approach leadership from the assumption that your departure is inevitable.

1. Leadership is a process of constantly turning over responsibilities to others. There are phases when the head of the organization needs to get personally involved, but the goal is to turn each initiative over to the right leader to carry it forward. In my experience, the best way to kill an initiative as the leader is to hold onto it too long. (See Leaders aren’t fruit-bearers.) The leader’s time is valuable real estate, and failure to release responsibilities comes at the expense of the rest of the organization. Remember that when it’s time to leave, anything that hasn’t been properly delegated is finished.

My mantra over my last months in my presidency became, “Let go. And trust God.” It certainly wasn’t easy; sometimes I struggled to extricate my hand from the grip. Week after week, I reviewed the list of things that were still on my desk and challenged my rationale for holding onto them. I knew there were some programs that were still fledgling, and if I pulled away too quickly, they wouldn’t make it. In spite of my attempts, one or two passion projects were casualties of the timing of my departure. That is an inevitable part of exiting.

2. A leader is a steward of a particular era. Unless the leader is the founder, the organization existed before she came, and it will continue after she’s gone. As Simon Sinek3 points out, leadership is not a finite game, with clear starting and stopping points. A stewardship mentality invites a different way of operating, including a willingness to invest in people, play the long game and lay the foundation for your successor.

What gave me counterintuitive courage to release initiatives was the realization that the next leader might very well drop it anyway—even if it was thriving, even if it had shown success under my stewardship. It’s the prerogative of your successor and his or her board, and closing something down doesn’t invalidate the successes of a previous era.

3. The greatest success for a leader is that the organization succeeds after he’s gone. If we’re honest, part of us wants to prove our worth by seeing the organization or initiative fall apart after we’re gone. But that would be a reflection on a leader who made it about himself—which is not leadership at all. When an organization is left in good shape, has a clear direction and has reserves to carry on its mission after a leadership transition, it reflects well on the departing leader.

Anyone who has worked with me over the past decade has heard me pray, over and over, “Lord, this is your organization.” At the end of the day, you aren’t married to your job or the organization. Keeping in mind that it’s God’s organization, God’s company, God’s program, will keep your hands limber so you can let go when the time is right.

References:

  1. How To Ride A Bucking Bull: Stay Calm And Hang On…For Now, article by Vineer Bhansali, Forbes, Sep 19, 2018
  2. The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, by Dr. Stephen Sample
  3. The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek

Leadership as bull riding series: