Navigating Change pt. 4: Leading in Uncertainty

10 years ago I attended the first Catalyst conference, hosted by John Maxwell for emerging leaders under the age of forty.  It’s been a great privilege to have had attended four more Catalyst gatherings as an alumni in the past ten years.  Of all the experienced speakers and all the brilliant insights, the two lessons that have most significantly marked me have come from Andy Stanley.

One of these lessons is a principle he taught called, “Leading in Times of Uncertainty.”

Uncertainty creates the vacuum for leadership. As much as we might hate uncertainty, it is critical to our job security! The problem of uncertainty to the leader is like the problem of growing hair to the stylist. It is a symbiotic relationship.  Without uncertainty there would be little demand and consequently little need for leadership. As uncertainty increases, in our economy, organizations, educational institutions, human relations, and every other sphere of life, the value of leadership increases. Thus, I believe we are living in incredibly exciting times where the market value for stellar leadership is at a prime rate.

There will always be uncertainty. Thus, there will always be the need for stalwart leadership. What is needed most in times of uncertainty, according to Stanley, is clarity. As leaders, we often feel the pressure to have all the answers. Impossible. No one expects us to have all the answers but ourselves. What people do expect, however, is for us to have enough guts and insight to bring clarity to the situation.  Even if that means telling them that we don’t know what the answer is.

There are several ways to do this:

1. Acknowledge what you don’t know – focus on what you do.  In my leadership, this often looks like this, “What is uncertain at this juncture of our organizational journey is ___________; but what is clear is ____________.”  For the past year, the staff of our local congregation has been diligent in pursuing building leads for our move. When it came time to communicate with our people that we were moving, we still did not know where we would be meeting from week to week. That was uncertain. What was clear was that in two weeks we would be out of our building! Storage units needed to be reserved, moving trucks secured, and volunteers recruited. So that is what we focused on in our communication while continuing to answer all of the needed questions behind the scenes.
2. Commit Reasonably. Commit to finding the answers but don’t over-commit or over-promise.  A good leadership principle in decision-making is if you have 80% of the needed information, you have enough to make a solid, educated decision. Don’t paralyze yourself into waiting for 100% of the details to come in. They never will. That’s what leaders are for. We may make up the other twenty and sometimes forty percent. People who will think, gather counsel, pray, intuitively make the best decision they know how, and steward the consequences afterwards.
3. Return to the original vision. Stanley states that the safest place to be in times of change is the very thing that got you started on the journey to begin with: the original vision, values, and calling. What do you fall back on that helps re-clarify the muddy waters of change? What was the original idea of your business, ministry or family? What did you sign up for? What are those five to seven core values that you committed to never breaking?

 Leadership can be nerve-wracking at times. It takes guts. Nobody really knows what’s across the Jordan. There will always be giants in the land and fortified walls to bring down.  Moreover, there will always be people telling you can’t do either. And who knows whether or not you really can? THAT is uncertain. What is CLEAR is that you have one of two choices.  Lead forward in the midst of uncertainty or stay in a desert full of complaining losers and always wonder “What if?”

Navigating Change pt. 3: The Curse of Predictability

I’m half way through a book I picked up yesterday that is exploding in my heart, so much so that I had to “change” what I had initially intended to post today.  “The Multiplying Church,” by Bob Roberts Jr. is a beautiful blend of the theology, philosophy and practicality of church planting.  In the seventh chapter, he lays out the characteristics needed in a disciple to facilitate a multiplying culture within the church. One particular characteristic is that of a pilgrim. Roberts says to, “remind them it’s an unpredictable journey” (p.111).  Here’s a quick excerpt:

“Living life on pilgrimage is a way of living the Christian life in adventure. There is so little adventure in Christianity today for the average follower of Jesus. It’s too predictable, too easy, and too pat. It’s fun to live the Christian life in such a way that you don’t always know the next bend or how the current bend is going to impact you. When you live life on pilgrimage, you are learning to walk by faith – something we don’t do a lot of today. It’s too predictable.”

One of the most significant experiences of my life occurred, despite my initial resistance, in the summer of 1996 when I embarked on my first real mission trip to Indonesia for two months. To borrow an abused cliché of most ORU missionaries, “my life was truly changed.” My routine interrupted, my paradigms shaken, my comfort zones invaded, my view of God and the world enlarged, my faults exposed, and my trivial peculiarities minimized.

I reference this experience because I believe it’s what life, leadership, and Christianity were always designed to be…unpredictable.  Mysterious. Adventurous. Risky. Scary. Go to a land I will show you – I’ll tell you when we get there. Take up your cross and follow me – stay close because I may take a turn you’re not expecting. 

I think we’re losing a generation because cultural Christianity is too safe and flat out boring.  We’ve got it all figured out. Or so we think.  We park in the same spots. We sit in the same seat, aisle, or section.  We know what songs we like and which ones we don’t, and consequently, which songs we will engage with and which ones we will be distracted with. We have succumbed to the idol of security. The blessing of mystery has been replaced with the curse of predictability. When we reduce the vibrancy of kingdom living to a “church” service once a week, we have effectively succeeded in neutering our message and consequently our influence.

I didn’t sign up for that. (And my guess is that you didn’t either.)

The life of faith begins at the intersection of unpredictability. How will that person respond when I engage them in conversation? Will the power of the gospel really manifest itself when I pray for the sick?  What is on the other side of that loving confrontation? Can God really do more with my 90% than I can with my 100?

Predictability is easy because it doesn’t require anything. No faith. No courage. No risk.  It’s autopilot. Cruise control.

Sure sharing my faith is scary. Confrontation is intimidating. Unpredictability is overwhelming.

Leadership, and especially Christian leadership, is SUPPOSED to be scary, intimidating and overwhelming.  It doesn’t work and it’s not needed otherwise. Besides, wouldn’t you rather be scared, intimidated and a little overwhelmed than just plain bored?

Navigating Change pt. 2: Playing by Different Rules

Change has a way of revealing something about who we are.  We may discover some things about ourselves we never knew were there: fear, insecurity, boldness, confidence, laziness, a short temper, etc.  Some of us are fortunate enough to be wired in a way that helps us see change positively. Most of us; however, are not that fortunate.  Perhaps it’s too broad, too generic, or too stereotypical to say this, but the majority of us simply do not handle change well.

 One thing is for certain. However I am wired as a leader, I simply do not have the luxury of responding negatively to the uncertainty before me.  It may sound unfair, but leaders play by a different set of rules. I know this sounds like leadership 101 – the attitude of the leader is contagious and will infect and affect everyone around for better or for worse. But sometimes I think we throw away the leadership rulebook when we are thrown off kilter.  We’re tired, confused, and frustrated. Nothing is lining up the way we want it to or planned for it to. It feels like everything is in chaos and everyone is in disarray. Naturally, these situations give us permission to flesh out a little, right? Wrong.

Change is when leadership is needed the most.  Leaders are the thermostat of every crisis situation.  We will either breed insecurity or confidence. We will convey either panic or purpose. This does not mean that we must feel the pressure to be disingenuous or inauthentic. I am not a huge fan of the “fake it till you make it” mentality.  Rather, I hold to a few guiding principles:

1. Leadership is a mindset.  As a kid, I would often complain to my dad of being bored. To which he would always, without fail, respond, “boredom is a state of mind.” I never understood what he meant, but after awhile I just stopped telling him. (Perhaps that was his goal all along!) Now, I understand that I can choose to be bored, or excited, or disengaged, or a leader.  With or without a title, I want to choose to be a leader in every situation. That doesn’t mean that I have to be THE leader.  It means that I act like I would want others to if I were.
2. I have the capacity to choose my influence. I can leverage what I have or I can give it away. If I leverage my influence well, pressing through my internal fears and frustrations and helping others to navigate through theirs, I just may make a few deposits into the trust account of my people. In fact, I believe that every situation of change holds an opportunity for every leader to garner greater trust and ultimately greater influence.
3. I can choose my attitude. I may not be able to control much of what is happening or what is not happening. Some factors are simply beyond our control regardless of how well we have prepared. Above all else, I have absolute control of one thing and that is my attitude. I have been tempted to give in to being disgruntled, pessimistic, disengaged, or frustrated. I love a good gripe fest as much as the next guy, just as long as I’m the only one doing the griping. But I have come to learn that leadership is exponential. What I do in terms of my attitude has an exponentially greater return for better or for worse than what others do.

If you discover something in your leadership that you don’t like, don’t let it take you out of the game. Acknowledge it, address it, make the necessary course correction and do what you were born to do…LEAD.