Tag Archives: leader

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:

Plan your dismount beforehand

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As I was researching this analogy of leadership-as-bull-riding, I was delighted to find another author who had also used the same analogy, but for investing1. Think of the parallels to leadership as you read this quote from Vineer Bhansali:

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.

In this series, I’m going to borrow Bhansali’s points to frame out a few of my own points about leadership succession planning. I’m mostly thinking of a first chair leader, but you can make the adjustments to other situations.

Plan your exit strategy beforehand

I’ll admit it’s a challenge to ask a newly-appointed leader—whose attention is more likely focused on what he want to accomplish in their first 100 days—to think about his dismount before day one. Here are three ways to apply exit strategy planning.

1. Articulate a best case road map

Employment contracts force us to consider the end game, articulating parameters and clauses for the eventuality of an exit. They should spell out how the leader would initiate an exit plan, and what steps will then kick into place. And how the board would initiate, and what happens then. A contract is the minimum, a starting point designed for protection of organizational assets and individuals. A deeper step might be a contingency plan that fleshes out scenarios for each of the various circumstances where a successor would be needed.

I’m urging going beyond protection and contingencies to considering a best case scenario for how you and the organization want to walk away from your time together. How can both end up with wins, even if the circumstances aren’t the best? Most leaders don’t ask these questions early enough to make a difference in how they set up and carry out their role. 

Lacking clearly-articulated expectations requires negotiation late in the game, which can create unnecessary pain and challenge. I know it doesn’t need to be said, but you have much better negotiating power before you take the position, not afterward.

2. Actively engage in ongoing succession planning

In a previous role in leadership development, I encouraged every leader to keep a chart naming:

  • at least one immediate successor
  • the most likely candidate(s) to be ready in the next two years, and
  • any long shots who need to be on their radar.

Then for the two most obvious candidates, track whether they are in a position that prepares them for the role, and an action step for their development. Ideally, on an annual basis, consider whether those two have taken a development step of some kind and design the next step you could help them take.

Throughout my role as president, I maintained my own confidential succession plan with potential replacements. I gave regular updates to the board, including a list of my most likely successors, using as a framework the classic article from Eichinger and Peters2 that draws your attention to “seven CEOs working for your organization today”—everyone from the 50-year-old most-logical CEO-in-waiting to the 35-year-old rising star to the 18-year-old high-potential intern. I also tracked along with the development of a number of these candidates, encouraging and even intervening in their development. With a couple, I had direct conversations to encourage very specific development and share openly about my own plans.

Keep in mind that a succession plan needs to be a living document, regularly updated. It’s far too easy to rest in your plans only to discover when you need it that it’s out of date: leaders are no longer available, you’ve lost confidence in one, or your view too optimistic and none are ready. Remember that, in a number of scenarios, carrying out the succession plan will be managed by someone other than you. Therefore it needs to be accessible and understandable by those who might be implementing it. Of course, those scenarios also mean you won’t be the one to make the decisions, and the one who does may go in a completely different direction. Your goal in succession planning is to intentionally invest in your preferred candidates so they are ready and so attractive that they will stand out among the options.

3. Develop a rhythm that asks the question

You need a rhythm that sparks the necessary conversation that will air out assumptions and plans. It could be as rigorous as formalizing 3- or 4-year terms for your position, or as simple as a calendared conversation. Without that, the onus is on one party or the other to initiate the conversation, and there’s a tendency for each side to set the bar high for a circumstance weighty enough to end the status quo. 

A well-designed plan, with early negotiations, a constant updating of the succession landscape, and scheduled conversations, will allow a leader to dismount in a way that minimizes injury and ensures a smooth transition to whatever’s next for both parties. Seamless exits and handovers start before mounting the bull.

My final thought is that both sides need to show a lot of grace. No amount of planning will remove all potential for injury in a process as fraught as this one. But none of these injuries should be fatal; time will heal minor wounds, allowing both bull and bull rider to move forward with genuine respect, admiration and a desire for the best case for both.

References:

  1. How To Ride A Bucking Bull: Stay Calm And Hang On…For Now, article by Vineer Bhansali, Forbes, Sep 19, 2018
  2. There are seven CEOs working for your organization today—do you know who they are and do you know what to do?, article by Robert W. Eichinger and James Peters, 2005. (It doesn’t seem to be online anymore, but I can send it to you if you’re interested.)

Leadership as bull riding series:

The only way to get off a bull

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In mid-February, I stepped down as president of Wycliffe Canada after 11 years. Over the previous five months, after I concluded it was time to move on from this role, I thought often about the analogy of Leadership as bull riding that I unpacked in my last post.

Shawn Bellows operates Bull Riding 101, a backyard school that teaches the fundamentals for aspiring bull riders. He says, “A lot of people think you just hang on and make ugly faces for eight seconds… But there’s body position and an art to being in the right spot at the right time.” Interesting parallels to leadership there: some just hang on, and some groan and moan about the challenges of leadership. I long to see leaders who can lean into the twists and turns, and position themselves well.

What I want to talk about here and in a number of future posts is the art of walking away. A successful bull rider not only survives the full eight seconds, but hopefully pulls off a great ride and then walks away with his head high. The problem is that a 2,000-pound bull doesn’t just stop like its mechanical cousin when it runs out of coins. Mr. Bellows offers this sobering thought:

“The only way to get off a bull is to buck off.”

So perhaps the most critical skill for any bull rider is to know how and when to dismount. Ideally with a planned dismount, in which the rider picks the right moment and then executes a rehearsed plan to slide off, landing on his hands and knees and crawling quickly to safety. This is a dangerous moment, when a number of things can go wrong: the rider might not be able to free his hand from the rope, he may be tossed or land badly, or the bull might come after him.

How does a leader “buck off” gracefully? When I announced last September that it was time for me to move on from the top role, I was committed to finishing well, but it wasn’t as smooth as I was hoping it would be. I’m learning that my experience is more common than I’d like to think. A young friend leading another organization sent me this note after learning of my plans:

I haven’t as much experience as you but in all my transitions even though my heart has been trying to help in every way to make smooth but unfortunately boards and leaders don’t always see it that way. My biggest hurts that I’ve worked through as a leader have been trying to leave well and not being “allowed “ to do so. Wish I had an answer for you – but am praying for you!! I am not aware of very many smooth and healthy transitions in our line of work.

I’m still working through what it looks like to land well and move on, but a blog is far too public a way to process it. I think my friend said it well: leaders need to be praying for each other, in beginnings and endings.

References

Leadership as bull riding series:

Fearless leader

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If I had a nickel for every time someone referred to me as “our fearless leader,” I’d be a wealthy man. I realize people are trying to honour me, and I accept that, but the label rubs me the wrong way because it suggests that I’m cut from different cloth. It suggests I must be among the fearless ones, when most people have fears, and many are debilitated by fears.

It puts a leader on a pedestal that places leadership safely out of reach for the normal person.

But leading isn’t about being fearless. It’s about overcoming fear. Think about some of these Old Testament characters. We remember that all three boldly approached a foreign king, asking for favour:

  • Esther seems to have tried to dodge the pending annihilation of her people, keeping her heritage hidden beneath the robes of a queen. But then she accepted her cousin’s charge that she was God’s woman on the scene “for such a time as this.” She asked her people in the city to fast for three days while she summoned courage to visit the king and make her request. She concluded, “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:12-17). After winning the king’s favour, she still took two days to make her request, easing into it by filling the king’s stomach with feasting. Was it continued nerves or a strategic approach?
  • Ezra’s burden to teach the returning exiles God’s Word led him to approach the king and ask for favour to return to Jerusalem. He had more faith than strategy, because he kicks himself for failing to ask for protection. This became an extra burden when the king was so taken with this scribe’s request that he appointed him governor and overloaded him with donations. God’s hand and love had been so clearly extended to Ezra that he “took courage” (Ezra 7:28), but he admitted a few verses later that he had been “ashamed to ask the king” for protection after boasting in God’s power (Ezra 8:22). Desperate, he proclaimed a fast “and implored our God” to come through for them.
  • Nehemiah prayed four months before slipping up and allowing the king to see the burden he carried. When asked why he was so glum, he was “very much afraid.” He gulped and offered a teaser. When the king took the bait and asked his request, this cupbearer prayed a desperate plea before illogically seeking an appointment as construction foreman for a city wall (Neh 2:1-5).

My point is that we usually remember the outcome, not the struggle. Often the perception is self-inflicted, as leaders reinforce the hero myth. If followers only see the outcome, they put leaders on the pedestal. Leaders need to be clear about the burden we couldn’t shake, the wrestling with God, the dark nights of the soul that led us to make a bold decision.

Worse yet, sometimes leaders convince themselves that they were fearless. Perhaps it’s delusion, believing the headlines. Perhaps it’s forgetfulness. Perhaps it’s poor self awareness. Both Ezra and Nehemiah refer often to “the hand of God” being on them to the point of compulsion. They never claimed credit for their own courage.

Followers can also play a role in overcoming fear. In a later scene after Ezra gets to Jerusalem and exposes a pattern of sin among the clergy, he faces a horrendous decision. The king had given Ezra incredible authority to back up his teaching with strict judgment: death, exile, bankruptcy or prison (7:26). Still, Ezra struggled with the decision until his followers—the ones caught in sin—told him he must follow-through. “Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you; be strong and do it” (10:4). What an amazing verse of followership! Clearly God’s hand was on Ezra to have followers ready to face their punishment.

So how do you overcome fear? As I was putting this blog together, a friend referred me to the blog of Jeff Iorg, President of Golden Gate Seminary. In July 2012, he wrote three powerful and practical blogs on the subject of overcoming fear. They’re a worthy follow-up to this blog post.

The secret of our success

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Since we first heard the stories about Jonah in Sunday School, we have learned that God is omnipresent; there is no place we can flee from his presence and no believer in whom he does not dwell. He’s everywhere. But if that’s true, then why do we see phrases such as these throughout Scripture?

The Lord was with…

My presence will go with you…

Lo, I am with you always…

Of course God is with us and goes with us. Right?

If the incredible frequency of these phrases in the Bible weren’t enough to catch my attention, the passion with which certain characters desire that presence certainly did. Consider Moses. He experienced enough of God’s physical presence in the burning bush, column of fire and smoke and face to face encounters that he wasn’t about to go anywhere without God’s presence. He argued, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15-16)

David is another leader who knew clearly that his success came from God’s presence. “The Lord was with him but had departed from Saul…. And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him.” (1 Samuel 18:12-16) No wonder, then, that after sinning with Bathsheba, David feared God would cast him out of his presence or take the Holy Spirit from him (Psalm 51:11). He was nothing without God’s presence.

I have a couple of foundational questions. If God is everywhere, why do we need to assure he’s present in our venture? And how can an omnipresent God remove his presence? These are critical questions for leaders, because if we don’t understand why Moses and David refused to lead without God’s presence, we lead at our own peril. Let’s look at a couple of things leaders need to understand.

Who gets the credit

There’s clearly some specific manifestation of God’s presence that gives a leader success. In addition to Moses and David, the Old Testament credits God’s presence as the secret to the success of Joseph (Gen 39:3,21), Joshua (Josh 6:27), Samuel (1 Sam 3:19), Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:7), Phinehas (1 Chron 9:20), John the Baptist (Luke 1:66) and Stephen (Acts 11:24). When I look back, I can see that, just as God was with Joseph in slavery, in prison and in the highest political office, he has given me success throughout my career, from the lows to the highs. I’ve seen problems solved through ideas that came to me in the middle of the night, I’ve seen doors open at just the right time and I’ve seen God give me favour in relationships that have advanced my career. I dare not claim any credit for those situations; the Lord was with me.

The key to effectiveness

The New Testament provides warnings and promises linking his presence to mission and leadership effectiveness. When Jesus commissions his disciples to be his witnesses, he promises his presence. As you go to baptize and make disciples, he says, “be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) A short time later, as he prepares to leave them, Jesus warns them not to try to be witnesses until he sends the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). It’s only when the baptism of the Spirit falls on them that their mission begins.

In John 15, Jesus offered the image of a grapevine to talk about proximity to him, promising fruitfulness when we “abide in him” and he in us. While this idea of dwelling or remaining suggests sitting still, that’s not the point. God is always at work, and it’s far more effective to join him in that work than to stray from his life-giving power. Remember, he promised in Matthew 28 to be with us as we go on his mission. But Jesus doesn’t stop with just a promise. He also warns that there will be no fruit ”apart from him.” As I mentioned in a previous blog post, “the verse doesn’t say that we will only produce some fruit. It doesn’t say we won’t be able to do much. It says we can do nothing.” Going further, he says branches that are not attached to the vine wither, are thrown away and are gathered to be burned. There are consequences for a leader who strays from his presence.

For the leader, these Scriptures suggest some course corrections. You might need to stop your forward progress and wait until you have assurance of God’s presence before you move forward. It might mean you need to discern his movement so you can join him. Stay close to him, steep yourself in his Word, know his character and learn his ways so that your direction aligns with his. Moses did this so well that his personal overall objective changed. In Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Ruth Haley Barton concludes that through Moses’ journey in the wilderness, he eventually came to think of God himself as his promised land rather than getting to the land of “milk and honey.” It all comes down to the value we place on his presence.

In her previous book, Sacred Rhythms, Barton talks about the value of breath prayers. Breath prayers are cries from deep down in your soul that you condense into a simple phrase that can be repeated easily and almost subconsciously throughout the day. Often I find that the frequent cry of my soul is this:

Omnipresent Lord, I need your presence.

I’m obsessed with keeping God’s presence. I want to know where the Holy Spirit is moving so I can join in, as a sailboat looks for wind. I want assurance of God’s presence before I head down a road. And I want to abide in Christ and him in me, so that my actions are infused with power.

After all, the secret to my success has very little to do with me.

Courage and Leadership

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You can never go wrong asking God to give leaders courage. Leadership and courage go hand-in-hand.

Why?

First, because leadership is about taking people from one place to another, and very rarely does that journey come with a clear roadmap. Leaders may have seen some glimpse of the “promised land” or experienced some part of it for themselves, but they are blazing a new trail. When I think of a journey like that, Moses comes to mind. One reason he kept his vision and faith while leading a nation for 40 years in the wilderness was because he had already spent 40 years in that wilderness tending sheep. Hard to believe, but this was his second round of shepherding hearts “prone to wander.” The scale and the resistance were different, but some parts of the new challenge were familiar.

And second, because leadership is a personal practice lived out on a public stage. Each leader has to figure out how much of his personal struggles to reveal to his followers. Frankly, many of our models have come from a generation that kept a “stiff upper lip,” giving a false impression that they didn’t struggle internally. I’m grateful for the young generations who are dropping that pretense. Some of them gain incredible power from admitting their failures and lack of courage. Joshua was that kind of leader. Why would he need four reminders to be “strong and courageous” in Joshua 1 if he wasn’t having doubts? Note that the first four times, it’s God who says it (Deut 31:23, Josh 1:6-9). But then the people join in (v18). It’s one thing to open yourself up to God about your fears and doubts. It’s another to let your followers see those fears so that they can en-courage you as a leader.

During a recent trip to Southeast Asia where I had a chance to interact with a large number of the leaders of Wycliffe and SIL, I noticed a lot of tired leaders. I suspect some were discouraged, some tired from pushing themselves too hard, and some burning out from working in areas of weakness for too long. So I appreciated an early exhortation from Wycliffe Global Alliance Director Kirk Franklin. He unpacked the lessons God had taught him during his just-completed sabbatical. He specifically noted the lesson learned from Jethro’s counsel to Moses in Exodus 18: God doesn’t want exhausted leaders.

Kirk went on to list a few applications for leaders in the Ten Commandments. For instance, “Do your Sundays look any different from any other day of the week?” He then set the tone for the meetings by confessing six areas of sin that he struggled with as a leader. Kirk’s personal disclosure was a powerful challenge for all of us.

To lead differently requires courage, both in the public and the personal aspects of leadership. To trust your vision and follow God’s direction in the face of doubts, obstacles and sabotage takes incredible fortitude. To admit that you are “not able to carry all these people alone” (Numbers 11:14), and ask for help, takes boldness. To risk your position by admitting your weaknesses requires inner strength. 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.

So we need to pray for our leaders to be “courageous in the ways of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 17:6). More and more I return to the argument Moses had with God in Exodus 33, where he begged for assurance of God’s presence. We to whom God has given this sacred trust need a daily reminder of that presence. The only way we can be successful is if, like Moses, the Lord is with us.

An over-inflated sense of readiness

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I was listening to a webinar last week that misrepresented itself and turned out far less useful than advertised. Not an atypical experience; webinars too often devolve into infomercials for the presenter rather than designed for the audience. I recall the words of an old boss. Joe Ledlie used to insist that you have to add value to any piece used to sell your company. If you add value for the recipient, they will listen to your message.

What saved the entire webinar for me was one question raised five minutes from the end. “What do I do with a young person who has an insatiable hunger for a leadership position and incredible impatience with taking the steps to develop?” Given the way my ears perked up at that question, I should have caught more of the presenter’s response. The one phrase that derailed my mind was his characterization of “an over-inflated sense of readiness.”

Have you ever encountered this phenomenon? I’m all for young people stepping into leadership, but too many want to reach the goal without putting in the hard work. Reality TV probably feeds this desire for instance gratification. Young people today would rather be Kelly Clarkson than the Beatles, who Malcolm Gladwell claims put in an estimated 10,000 hours of hard work in Germany before ever making it big.

So, let’s unpack this issue a little bit. First, why do we need young people in leadership? I’ll address that here. In my next post, I’ll argue the other side.

I think organizations are served well by a variety of viewpoints. Ethnicity and gender are two principle means of achieving that diversity, but recognizing that it’s not the skin that’s important, but the unique vantage points their unique experience brings. However, there are a few more elusive forms of diversity, such as age and a fresh set of eyes – someone who comes from outside the organization and lifts the organization out of its rut. Both have expiration dates.

Age diversity incorporates several desirable characteristics:

  • generational viewpoints
  • ability to understand the culture
  • technical savvy
  • coachability
  • open mindedness
  • willingness to risk
  • energy
  • curiosity

I think ability to understand culture and technology has parallels with ability to understand and speak languages. Social media is not my first language; I’m probably a 1.5 generation. But computers are my first language. In contrast, my parents use computers like it’s their second language and find social media completely unintelligible.

The goal isn’t to ditch one generation in favor of another, but to have all working together to create a rich tapestry of perspectives. You therefore need both on your leadership team. If you have a couple of older sages, you can afford to take a risk on a couple of young, energetic change agents. I’ll go ahead and say it: most organizations and businesses take too risk-averse a line when it comes to inviting young people to the leadership table.

Cameron TownsendWhen I look at Wycliffe and wonder how we could ever turn the keys over to a young leader, it’s helpful for me to remember this picture. Our founder was in his twenties when he had the audacity to think he could start an organization that would take on translation for the remaining language groups.

Don’t blame them for being misled

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My sister made an interesting comment this week that triggered a new post that’s perfect for a Friday. She said for many years when she read a description of someone as “misled,” she thought it was pronounced [mizzled], a word which to me falls in the company of such descriptors as grouchy, frumpy and crotchety. I asked my sister what she thought [mizzled] meant, and her response draws from the verb form, misle: “I just thought it was a very mean thing to do to someone.”

What hit me later is the actual meaning of the word “misled.” Dictionary.com defines it as being led astray or guided wrongly. The implication is that the fault lies with the leader. That’s what Chip and Dan Heath point out in Switch. In a blog post a year ago, I quoted their reference to the Fundamental Attribution Error, which states that leaders have a deeply-seated tendency “to attribute others’ behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in” (while generously doing the opposite with our own behavior).

What I’m suggesting is that if you, as a leader, have problems with your followers, you should look in the mirror. Grumpy, complaining, “misled” followers reflect the face of their leader.