Leadership Wisdom

"This is the strange paradox of leading: to the degree you attempt to hide or dissemble your weakness, the more you will need to control those you lead, the more insecure you will become, and the more rigidity you will impose - prompting the ultimate departure of your best people.

***

To decide requires a death, a dying to a thousand options, the putting aside of a legion of possibilities in order to choose just one. De-cide. Homo-cide. Sui-cide. Patri-cide. The root word decidere means "to cut off." All decisions cut us off, separate us from nearly infinite options as we select just one single path. And every decision we make earns us the favor of some and the disfavor of others.

A good leader will, in time, disappoint everyone. Leadership requires a willingness to not be liked, in fact, a willingness to be hated. But it is impossible to lead people who doubt you and hate you. So the constant tug is to make the decision that is the least offensive to the greatest number and then to align yourself with those who have the most power to sustain your position and reputation in the organisation.

Leadership is not about problems and decisions; it is a profoundly relational enterprise that seeks to motivate people toward a vision that will require significant change and risk on everyone's part. Decisions are simply the doors that leaders, as well as followers, walk through to get to the land where redemption can be found."

- Dan Allender, Leading with a Limp

I've made some painful mistakes in the past few weeks - some not really related to leadership haha but will have bearing on how I lead in the future, I think - that have helped me see that God truly is close to us at our weakest point.

1. 1 Corinthians 10:12-13, "If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure."

I've learnt the truth that when you judge others, or are too legalistic about someone else's behavior, then you have to be mega-ly on guard, because it might just open the door for you to slip right into the very same problem/temptation that someone else is facing.

2. Other people's problems with me are not always my problem. Other people's insecurities are not my responsibility. I do not have to choose to respond negatively by "lowering" or hiding myself so as to make them feel more confident to step out in the place God has called them to. I need to trust that God will empower them Himself and show them that they need to keep their eyes on Him, not other people.

3. In the same way, if God has called me to something, all I need to do is step out in faith with God, and He will lead me to places beyond my expectations. There is no point in God calling me to any place of leadership or responsibility if I have it all figured out already. And I need to ignore all the other voices around me, I am only responsible to God for how I steward my gifts. What everyone else says must be submitted to God so I can be sure to separate truth from untruths - words/perceptions produced by our fleshly responses to others.

4. God made me the way I am for a reason. All I need to do is to find a way to use the personality that He has given me wisely, submitting all my desires, thoughts, and actions to Him and trusting the Holy Spirit to lead me into all truth.

I cannot and should not try to deny who I am, or try to change who I am. It'll only lead to chaos and confusion and a deep sense of loss and dissatisfaction because I am not living in a way that pleases God.

If people think I am too fierce or too strong, then so be it. My weaknesses are often my greatest strength to God, and God has engineered me in that particular way because He will put me in places that require me to be strong and fierce and uncompromising. Never let myself feel that I should conform to a certain mold just because other people say so. It always leads to compromise and a withdrawal of God's anointing and opportunities over my own life.

5. God allowed all the things that happened to me - all the things I saw as a child through my father's ministry - for a reason. God allowed me to experience betrayal, hatred, loneliness, etc., for a reason. My confidence and security should never be in whether or not these things become constant patterns in my life, and I also should never judge/evaluate myself according to whether these things still happen to me.

I need to find the line between belonging to a community, giving and loving with all that I have and not being overly dependent on people's approval for survival. None of the Old Testament prophets needed affirmation, most of them never got it. Why should my life be any different? If it comes, take it with gratefulness and surrender it to God so it doesn't entangle me. If it doesn't, the knowledge that what I am doing is pleasing to God is more than enough for me. I need to train myself to live for nothing else but God's pleasure.

6. Always have grace. For myself, for others. We all need grace. We all make mistakes. We all learn.

7. Leading is all about loving. And having a vision of how God sees the people around us, having a vision of how God's love can transform them, having a vision of how God CAN give us His love and strength to love them until they become who God wants them to be. It is seeing that God sees all these people, and they are precious to Him, just the way they are. It is wanting and desiring to have that same capacity and intensity of love that Jesus has for them. It is going after the marginalised, the forgotten, the ostracised and pulling them into the center of God's fullness and showing them that the Kingdom of God was made for them. It is helping them see that Jesus marginalised himself on purpose that they may be able to enter along with Him into the Father's house. It sometimes involves me intentionally also choosing to sit and stay with them at the margins and just loving them until they gain the courage to move out of it. Until they see that God laid His banquet just for them, that they may feast at His table and find themselves nourished by His riches and goodness and grace, and find the strength to live again.

It is being so strong and confident and rooted in God that I CAN allow others to hate me, hurt me, misuse me, abuse me without letting these things ruin and affect me...as long as it leads them to Christ.