Tag Archives: leadership

Willow Creek Thoughts

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I’m chewing on my notes from the first day of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, looking for patterns and the fingerprints of God. A couple of things jump out as I put the various threads from yesterday together.

1. Our current crises are opportunity. I knew that already, but it was good to hear Bill Hybels and Gary Hamel say it.

Hybels: How do gifted leaders react? With perverse excitement at the opportunities. These are perfect conditions for greatness to emerge.

Hamel: Should we wring our hands or thank God for the opportunity?

I think your reaction depends on whether you’re more concerned with defending the past or strategizing for the future. It also depends on how nimble you are. I think of Rudolph Guiliani on 9/11. He had a long-term plan for the city, though the average person in Orlando never heard about it or cared. That was the plan that no doubt led him to the meeting that happened to be right near the Trade Center that morning. But if Guiliani was anything, he was nimble as he reacted to the crisis, and greatness emerged.

2. Leadership in the future is going to look quite different. Gary Hamel and Jessica Jackley (founder of Kiva) both talked about a lack of hierarchy.

Hamel: It’s a challenge to build organizations that can survive without superhumans at the top. Leaders today are less concerned with control and more concerned with connecting, mobilizing and supporting. Their strategies are open and their hierarchy is flat.

Jackley: When you assume co-creation as a value from the beginning, top-down management doesn’t work.

If the hero leader is an old and failed model, as I’ve blogged about before, how do we move to the idea that a team can fill the impossibly long list of requirements for a CEO? Could you have different members of the team to cover the multiple roles of rousing public speaker, visionary leader, internal communicator, disciplined manager and caring, accessible, sympathetic boss? High-level leadership would sure look more attainable if we could find a way to lead in community.

3. Ideas need contribution. Gary Hamel had a couple of zingers, but one metaphor is going to stick with me:

Ideas shouldn’t develop like a pregnancy, where something happens in private and then a number of months later, out comes a nice package, but as a family picnic, out in the open where everyone contributes.

How do we get everyone — colleagues, clients, etc. — involved in our future? How can a large organization move to co-creation? Others have managed to reinvent themselves.

At lunch, one of our staff members pointed out that he’s been around long enough to see us move from bottom-up leadership to top-down leadership, and now we’re talking about bottom-up leadership again. I’m not sure we’re really back where we started. I think our world and our technology has evolved to the point that we now have the ability to co-create instead of individual brainstorming that has to be pulled together by an individual. It may have flavors of the old, but it feels new.

The thorn in your side

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How do you recognize leadership gifts in someone? You may have read John Maxwell’s scale of leadership. I’m not sure how much I agree with the concept or his analysis of the scale, but it’s a useful device to make an observation from my own experience. If you’re a 7 on the leadership scale and you have an 8 working under you, they will likely be a thorn in your side.

How exactly will that manifest itself? They might be the one who critiques everything you do. They might take initiative on projects you didn’t want them working on. They might be the one who takes the inch and turns it into a mile. They might go around the system instead of working within the boundaries. There are leadership traits on display in every one of those abuses of the supervisory relationship.

There are three choices for the manager, then.

  1. You can either call it leadership and give them opportunities to grow their abilities in a healthy setting.
  2. You can liberate them so they can move on to a job where they can better utilize their “gifts.”
  3. Or you can suppress their initiative.

The third leads to broken trust, continued pain and crushed spirits. I’ve been in that position, and I suggest that there are really only two choices for a person like this.

Let me suggest one possible conclusion: look at them as a chance to work yourself out of a job. Grit your teeth and pour into this emerging leader for a year or two, refine their rough edges and then liberate them by stepping aside. After all, if you’re truly a 7 on the scale, the best thing you can do is recognize the time to step aside and let them shine. If you do it right, you can count their future success as your success.

Lead where you are

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Leadership isn’t just something you’re going to when you grow up. It’s something anyone can do, right now. If you think you need a position to lead, you’re not really a leader.

Consider Jephthah in the Bible. Don’t know who he is? He’s worth looking up. Judges 11 says he was a great warrior but born into a broken family that left him an outcast, chased off by his half brothers. “Soon he had a band of worthless rebels following him.” You know you’re a leader when people follow you without any effort on your part. The thing I like about Jephthah’s story is that he didn’t mope or give up. He led where he was, and it was in the land of Tob that he sharpened his leadership skills. Sure enough, his family’s clan soon got into trouble and begged him to return and lead them, “Because we need you.” As you’d expect, he was very, very careful before he stepped into a greater position of authority, but he was ready, and he led Israel through 6 years of war.

Consider David. He also didn’t have the pedigree of a leader and was overlooked by his family. His resume was pretty thin when Samuel first put him on the succession plan. He was then put on hold for decades and had to flee for his life. After a series of escapes, including feigning insanity to avoid detention in Gath, he ended up in a cave. I Samuel 22 says, “Soon his brothers and all his other relatives joined him there. Then others began coming — men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented — until David was the captain of about 400 men.” David honed his leadership skills in the wilderness and in exile. He didn’t choose his followers, but he was faithful to lead where he was, and his followers became fiercely loyal.

Leadership is something that happens independent of position or title. Leadership is more about who you are than where you are or what’s on your job description. As “a famous Gulf War general” puts it in The 52nd Floor: Thinking Deeply About Leadership,

[Leadership] is an intensely private affair. I say it is private because it all boils down to your inner experience of the context you are operating in. It’s private in that sense, but public in the sense that it is engaged with others out in the open for everyone to see and scrutinize.

David and Jephthah were by no means perfect. There’s plenty to question in their lives and leadership, but they didn’t wait for their dream positions. They learned their lessons, not in the classroom but in the wilderness. Long before they were “discovered,” they rolled up their sleeves and led where they were.

For more on this subject, check out my post on being developed versus being discovered.

Leadership is contextual

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I’ve blogged on this subject before, but I heard and read some really interesting thoughts on the subject in Leadership Rising, Wycliffe’s one-week, strengths-based leadership development program.

First of all, our president referred back to the last four presidents of Wycliffe USA. He pointed out that the board brought in each one of them for a specific purpose to transform our organization. Each one had his own strengths and weaknesses but was ideal for the role he was asked to fill. That reinforces to me the idea that there is no single pattern for a successful CEO. I suspect that in the room I’m sitting in, every single one of the Myers-Briggs types is represented. And yet, we’re all leaders in our own contexts.

Second, a friend of mine sent me a challenging new leadership book, The 52nd Floor: Thinking Deeply About Leadership. The following quote stood out to me, quoting from “a famous Gulf War general”:

The act of leading is a process that undergoes constant change. When you find what works, such as your “six keys to success,” you’ll eventually fail. All the elements in a leadership situation are constantly changing. You as a leader are growing and changing. Your workforce is developing. Some employees leave the organization, others enter it. The situation changes all the time. The easiest way for a leader to fail is for him or her to apply what worked yesterday to today.

Gifts, interests and calling

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At Wycliffe USA, there’s a group of young leaders who meet together for mutual encouragement, accountability and to challenge each other. The goal of The Threshing Floor is to discuss issues of leadership and prompt each other to action. In meeting with this group twice a month for the last two years, I’ve noticed that there are differences between having leadership gifts, leadership interests and leadership calling. Reluctance seems to happen when one or more of those characteristics is missing.

(Notice that I didn’t list leadership positions. I think all of us can think of someone who has a position but lacks the other three.)

Let me give a couple of examples. For starters, I’ve watched a handful of people who come in streaks. They come for a while, then disappear. After a while they return. Why? I’ve concluded that they are intrigued by the idea of leadership. They’re students of it; they like to watch leadership in action up close. But every time they try setting out for the deep end themselves, they panic. Then they throw up their hands and stop pursuing leadership… for a while. Eventually that interest bubbles to the surface and they return.

So, do they just have leadership interests but no calling? Or no gifting? I’m not sure that’s it, because I’ve seen them influence people. I think they’re more comfortable following, except that they can’t simply follow. For some, I believe they perceive leadership gifts in themselves but they either haven’t found their niche or have failed gloriously the few times they’ve tried it.

What about the person who has leadership gifts and calling but never sought it? Consider Steve Murrell, pastor and author of The Reluctant Leader blog. The rationale for naming his blog is an interesting read. This sentence sums it up for me:

Maybe you never wanted to be a leader, but then you turned around and people seem to be following you. Scary.

Any reluctant leaders out there? What’s your story?

Reluctance is not the same as unwillingness

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Part 2 in defining a reluctant leader is to describe what it is not. Another great quote from the blogosphere, this one from Jeffrey Dean:

In Forrest Gump, Forrest had hundreds of people following him as he ran across the country, but he had no idea why he was running, much less what to say to those who joined him. When the moment came for him to speak, he simply said he was tired, and thought he would go home. There is a simple wisdom in this, but it was not delivered in a way anyone was ready to accept.

Again, a person with the ability to lead has no duty to do so. While some may argue that choosing not to lead is a waste of ability, I would counter that a person who does not want to lead does not make a good leader. Here, then, is the most important distinction to make: a reluctant leader is not an unwilling leader. It is simply someone who does not actively seek to lead before attracting others who want to follow. At some point, such a person must decide whether to lead or not, and the choice itself defines whether the person is actually a leader or not.

I am one who would argue that stewardship of our gifts is critical, and anything less is waste. However, I’m with him on his last point. Leadership abilities are not enough. A leader is one who chooses to lead.

So reluctant leaders have huge potential, but they’re not leaders until they emerge. I firmly believe that in every reluctant leader, there is a suppressed desire to lead.

An elusive breed of potential leaders

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Time after time, I’ve run into people my age or younger who have leadership gifts that remain hidden. I’m not necessarily just referring to the long-established art of unearthing leadership gifts in people and bringing those to light. The part that disturbs me is when young leaders know they have leadership gifts but dodge the mantle of leadership.

“If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously” (Rom 12:8). I firmly believe that those who have leadership gifts have a responsibility. Rather than squander it or suppress it, they need to develop it and practice leading.

Why would people seek to bury their leadership gifts? There are lots of reasons I’m going to dig into over the next few posts. Before I do that, we should agree on what a reluctant leader is.

The internet is a goldmine. Of all places, I found a wonderful article from the Natural Science Department at Manatee Community College in Bradenton, FL. Perhaps in scouring the world for new and endangered species, they discovered the reluctant leader. Check out this quote from Dr. Anthony and Crystal Gambino’s essay: “Untapped Potential: In Search of the Reluctant Leader.”

There exists an elusive breed of potential leaders. Most of these potential leaders will go unnoticed; very few will ever reach their leadership potential. They serve out of view and live in the shadows of others. It is this existence, in the shadow, that will serve them well if they are found and developed into the leaders they could be. The question is how do you find such a potential leader, one that does their job, but gives the credit to those who they helped. They help others reach their potential by gently pushing from behind with words of encouragement. This potential leader should lead, but is reluctant to do so mainly because they see leaders as those who assign the work and then take the credit. In their mind this is the last thing they want to become. Finding a reluctant leader will take a keen eye for observation, nurturing with patience, equipping with knowledge and developing the future leader over time. Tapping into this untapped potential will be a personal investment with a high rate of return.

What are your reactions? Anything stand out to you?

What does a leader look like? Part 1

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That last post brings me back to the core of my blog: what does a leader look like in a postmodern context?

As I’ve observed my generation’s forays into leadership — including our new president, who was born on the cusp of Generation X in 1963 — I suspect a number of things will prove true about Gen X leaders as a whole. Granted, these are stereotypes and the characteristics may well prove to have positive and negative ramifications. I want to dig into what a leader looks like over the next month, but I’m going to be sporatic until I take my new position in April. Hang in there with me, and set your RSS feed.

I think Gen X leaders are not always immediately identifiable. They may not be the most vocal or the one up front. When you walk into a room of young people, you’re likely to note a few extroverts who stand out for being the most vocal. A few seem to command the ears of the rest though they’re not as outspoken. Others might carry the right technology or always seem to wear the right clothes. But the one in charge – the one who called the group together and did the behind the scenes work to get them there and subtly shift the conversation – may not be any of these.

Leadership is influence, after all. You can have a huge amount of influence without being the one in front. I gave an example of this kind of “back row leadership” in my very first post. Here’s another: do you remember in Amazing Grace how William Wilberforce was the vocal one in the House of Commons, but prime minister William Pitt was secretly pulling strings without offering any emotion from the floor? There was no question that Pitt was the power broker, though Wilberforce got the headlines.

So, why not lead from the front? There could be a lot of reasons, but let me suggest a few:

1. We have an iconic view of leaders. To be a leader, you have to have the complete package: a face for magazine covers, great speaking ability, amazing organizational aptitude and abundant confidence, empathy and wisdom. Who can measure up to the image? Either leaders are larger than life or they’re failing gloriously. Or both.

2. I think there is a strong preference for avoiding risk. It’s easier to sit in the back row and take potshots at the person at the front. The one at the front is putting his neck out, and that takes courage and confidence — two traits that seem to be lacking among many young people. Perhaps we’ve been too sheltered. Anyway, it’s easier to influence someone else to get out front and take the risk instead.

3. Younger leaders prefer facilitation. It’s a philosophical difference. We like to do accomplish things together, and sorting out the roles to recognize success gets messy when it was done as a team. Maybe it doesn’t matter who gets the credit, after all.

4. I think many in my generation see power as a trap. They’re not interested in all the perks that go along with position. No amount of power or money can make up for the long hours, the cost to family, the stress or the inability to wear jeans to work. Better to keep your freedom and your balance.

Leaders know who to be afraid of

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“Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” — Matthew 10:28

What a crazy verse. It stuck in my mind since the first time I noticed it. Funny how you can read the Bible many times and not see something. Anyway, there’s a lot I can say about this verse, but let me put it in a leadership context, starting with a look in the mirror.

Like many leaders, I’m a people-pleaser. Frankly, approval is my idol. I’m far too concerned with what other people think of me most of the time. I therefore make decisions out of fear — maybe not fear of bodily harm, but certainly fear of falling out of favor or losing face.

So when Jesus asks, “What’s the worst that could happen?” it convicts me of my idolatry. I recall Lincoln’s reminder that you can only please some of the people all of the time. But maybe he missed the point. I shouldn’t be concerned with pleasing anyone ever. I resonate with Sara Groves’ song about an Audience of One. There’s only One who I need to please. And only One I need to be afraid of. After all, what’s the worst that anyone else can do to me? Hurt me? Kill me? Where I come from, neither of those is even likely.

It takes courage to lead. Courage to make a decision and stick with it even if no one else thinks it’s the right thing to do. If my fear of anyone else’s opinion guides my decision-making, then I’m taking a great risk, especially if I’m not honest about my priorities.

I guess that’s why they call it bowing to public opinion.

Leadership Development programs aren’t exactly new

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At the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta a few months ago, Perry Noble pointed out that some of Moses’ best work was done in the wilderness, where no one saw his brilliance.

That thought launched me on a study of some of the young leaders in the Bible and how they developed. One of my observations is that there are a number of leadership development programs in the Bible. The leaders who deliberately looked for and developed young people with leadership potential were not exactly hallmarks of exemplary leadership themselves: King Saul and Nebuchadnezzar. The former included spear dodging as part of his program and the latter recruited by kidnapping and tested via a fiery furnace.

My wife says that Esther was singled out in a development program. Not sure that was exactly the same kind of program.