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July 31, 2019
The calm leader is self-aware, committed to the mission (the mission trumps) and focuses on his or her own self in the transformation process.
Technical competence pleases people. When we teach a good Bible study, sing a great solo, run a fine program or hit a home run, people cheer. Most of us who have been asked to consider leadership have big cheering sections. We are used to applause, affirmation and feeling successful. But the minute we accept the call to adaptive leadership that brings transformation, we should expect most of the cheering to stop.
when we enter the realm of adaptive work—working in uncharted territory—win-win often becomes lose-lose.
Heifetz and Linsky inform us that people do not resist change, per se. People resist loss.
Systems theory reminds us that “today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions.”
When you stand before people and tell them that in order to accomplish a mission, they have to change, adapt, give up something for the greater good, work with those they don’t like or compromise on something they care about, they get mad. They get really mad. Mostly, they get mad at you, and this is exactly the sign that transformation is beginning to happen.
There are two forms of heat for bringing transformation: urgency and anxiety.
Whenever the urgent pushes out the important, we fall into the trap of feeling as if we are busy accomplishing something while we are running on a treadmill—getting exhausted but not going anywhere.
I also often coach my pastor clients to give a yearly “I Have a Dream” sermon in order to keep raising the urgency
Instead this is an honest and very personal sharing of hopes and visions. To be clear, this is not a prophetic “God’s dream” for the church. Discerning that is the work a pastor and the church leaders do together. This “I Have a Dream” speech is simply the pastor articulating the power of dreaming. When a pastor shares his or her dream for what God could do in and through them, the congregation begins to realize that they too can dream, that God speaks to the whole community, that it is a sign of the movement of the Spirit when “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, / your old men shall
...more
Often when a leader shares a dream, the
organization begins to wrestle with their untapped potential, the demands of change and the realization that they are being led forward.
most often the heat that hinders organizational systems from moving toward their aspirations and goals is anxiety.
“In and of itself, anxiety is neither functional or dysfunctional. It is a state of readiness to do something or other
that may or may not be appropriate in response to a threat that may or may not be accurately perceived.”
For leaders the point of calming down is not to feel better; it’s to make better decisions. It’s to make the best decisions for furthering the mission.
To stay calm is to be so aware of yourself that your response to the situation is not to the anxiety of the people around you but to the actual issue at hand.
Think of how many ministry decisions have been made in order to not hurt the feelings (acceptance) or threaten (survival) or challenge (control) a leader, a group, a big giver or a significant part of the congregation.
calm, like anxiety, is contagious.
We need our people feeling the urgency and healthy anxiety enough to overcome complacency and move.
At the same time we need our people to calm down enough to get beyond technical fixes, false urgency and work-avoidance scrambling.
“To lead means to have some command of our own anxiety and some capacity not to let other people’s anxiety contaminate us; that is, not to allow their anxiety to affect our thinking, actions, and decisions.”
All I want is for my presence to turn the anxiety thermostat down one click on the dial so we can focus on the urgency of our mission.
The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change.
leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world,
As a pastor I had to work with my colleagues and elders to understand that the first commitment of church elders is to the whole church, that the Session itself is the “first team.”
1. Allies. An ally is anyone who is convinced of the mission and is committed to seeing it fulfilled.
2. Confidants. To be a confidant, a person must care more about you than they do about the mission of the organization.
3. Opponents. Potential opponents are stakeholders who have markedly different perspectives from yours and who risk losing the most if you and your initiative go forward.
4. Senior authorities. As I have said from the outset, leadership is not the same thing as authority. Authority is your role, your position of formal power, but leadership is a way of functioning.
5. Casualties. In any transformational leadership effort there will be casualties. You can’t go into uncharted territory without risk.
Stay connected to those who are resisting change to keep influencing the system toward health and life. This is counterintuitive and, yes, dangerous.
For Friedman the “peace-monger” is the leader whose own high degree of anxiety leads him to prefer harmony to health, to appease complainers just to quiet them, but who will not actually demand that they take responsibility for their own part in the organizational problem.
they had to deal with the attitude-poisoning influence
Saboteurs are usually doing nothing but unconsciously supporting the status quo.
every system is “perfectly designed for the results we are getting,”
Friedman describes these “peace-mongers” as “highly anxious risk-avoiders” who are “more concerned with good feelings than progress” and consistently prefer the peaceful status quo over the turbulence of change—even if change is necessary.
expect sabotage. Anticipation is a great defense.
Remember, all change, even necessary change, brings loss. Loss heightens anxiety, and anxiety can lead people to do things that even hours before
they wouldn’t have considered.
You, by bringing change, have upset the emotional equilibrium of the system.
The art of leadership is helping the system override the instinct to self-preservation and replace it with a new organizational instinct to be curious about and open to the terrifying discomfort of asking, Could God be up to something here?
Third, don’t take it personally. The people following you may be shooting you in the back, but it’s really not you that they are sabotaging, it’s your role as leader.
Fourth, focus your attention on the emotionally strong, not the saboteurs.
what actually keeps the change process going is investing even more time in those committed to growing, adapting and changing for good.
Keep building healthy alliances with those who are emotionally mature and share your convictions, and they will join you in the needed change. As you see them begin to grow and change, even as you witness the tiniest bit of God’s transforming power in yourself or in others, it will inspire you to stay on course also.
if someone starts to sabotage what you have already been doing, consider it confirmation that you are exactly in the right path.
Leading change is a process not accomplished quickly, and the moments of sabotage are the most crucial times in the change process. At this moment everyone in the system sees the leader’s true colors. Sabotage is not only a test of the leader’s resolve but also a test of the system’s resilience.
Friedman noted that when a leader offers healthy, consistent, clear, convicted presence (what Friedman calls “taking a stand”), the organizational system begins to adapt toward health:
The Red Zone is “all about me”; the Blue Zone is “all about the mission.”
