It Takes A Church...

We Need Chaplains...Just not More Of Them...Not Now.

In a recent editorial, Mark Galli offered a thoughtful and provocative defense of the pastor-as-chaplain model vs. the pastor-as-leader model.  Galli criticizes the growing impersonal institutionalism of the church that holds up the model of the megachurch as the only true vision of congregational health and success (and the megachurch “lead pastor” as the only true model of pastoral vitality).  I couldn’t agree with him more. 

Without doubt, there is continual need for women and men with spiritual sensitivity to the souls of people (in the holistic sense that Galli describes so well). Indeed, there is something incredibly important occurring when a pastor accompanies us through a dark night of the soul, a personal trauma, a moment of crisis.  And without doubt there have been far too many churches that have begun to take on the ethos of a corporation that seem to miss these most important moments. I couldn't agree with him more.

Galli wants to raise up the importance of this pastoral presence by challenging our ideas of the "pastor as leader" and--by and large--I agree with his critique.  If leader means "someone who makes the organization grow in numbers, dollars and reputation," it is a deficient definition indeed.

Galli goes on to assert that the model most criticized--that of “chaplain”--is actually the model of Jesus who traveled throughout Galilee as a healer. He  writes, “For centuries, the pastorate was thought to be about "the cure of souls"—souls being understood not as the spiritual part of us, but as the fullness of our humanity. The pastor has traditionally been thought of as one who does ministry in the midst of a people who are sick and dying, and who administers in word and sacrament, in Scripture and in prayer, the healing balm of the Lord. So who told us that the pastor is primarily a leader/entrepreneur/change agent and anything but a curer of souls? And why do we believe them?”

And it is at this very point that I want to offer a nuance that I hope will be received by Mr. Galli (and the hundreds who “liked” this article on Facebook) as an opportunity to continually clarify the complexity of the pastoral task in our day. 

Yes, “for centuries, the pastorate was thought to be about the ‘cure of souls’.”  I agree.  That’s the way it USED to be.  During the centuries of Christendom, this was an appropriate and helpful metaphor.  In a culture where Christianity was in the cultural center, “chaplain” or even “pastor” was a crucial component for keeping powers-that-be attuned to the word of God and the way of Jesus when other cultural forces were present to lead us into temptation and conformity with “the world”. In a Christendom world, pastors were needed to continually bring a word of truth, a touch of healing and a prophetic reminder of what God required of his people, an institution or a nation (which is also true in a theocracy, as Galli points out in his use of Nathan as a “servant” to David).

Indeed in our cultural institutions that still recognize the need for someone to be the embodiment of the spiritual in the corporate life, we celebrate.  We can rejoice that there are institutions like schools, hospitals, the military (even Congress!) that continue to call on individuals to be available to heal, to care, to counsel and yes, speak prophetically in the midst of the complexities of organizational life.  And indeed, this is the model that is still advocated by many of my pastoral heroes like Eugene Peterson, whom Galli holds up as the model (see here for another post where I “Dare to Differ with Eugene Peterson”).

But increasingly, this is not the mission of the church today. In a post-Christendom context, the metaphor of pastor as healer, chaplain, or curer of souls is inadequate to the task and literally killing the church.  Churches that continue to cling to a Christendom context and expectation for pastors (as seen mostly in mainline churches like my own) are dramatically in decline and becoming increasingly irrelevant to the changing cultural contexts that are far more like a mission field in the first century than the cultural contexts of the most recent past centuries for which Galli (and most of us, frankly—even me) pine nostalgically.

But that day is gone. 

The Missional Movement, as originally inspired by the insights of Lesslie Newbigin expressed theologically by Darrell Guder and others, has given rise to an entirely different understanding of a pastor as the leader of a people in mission. 

In this post-Christendom context, the congregation, not the pastor, is the embodiment of Jesus (literally “the body of Christ”).  The congregation, not the pastor, is the true ‘healer of souls’ going into the world to demonstrate and proclaim the reign of God.  The laity (that is the whole people of God), not just the pastor, is the prophetic voice to power in boardrooms, courtrooms, and classrooms.  The Church, not just particular Christians, is the presence of God, the temple of the Spirit and corporately, communally and contextually—the manifold witness of God to the particular locales of God’s world.

To be sure, leadership in a missional context is NOT the model offered by the megachurch either.  The institutional isomorphism that gave rise to the megachurch as the model of a successful church-as-corporation is just as rooted in Christendom as the mental model of “pastor-as-chaplain.”  And megachurches for all of their numbers and name-recognition are also in decline, by the way.  While there are certainly exceptions, most megachurches continue to thrive most in parts of the United States that still hold the most cultural Christianity--the geographic south.  It is right for us to recognize that that model, while still vibrant in some places, is likely not the best model for most of us.

What is needed today in our churches is not to replace “leader” with “servant”, as Galli suggests, but a deeper understanding of the kind of servant-leadership needed in this changing world.  As the world changes, denominations, seminaries, thought-institutions and and voices of influence like Christianity Today need to continually affirm and support a changing paradigm of pastoral leadership.

This pastoral leadership paradigm is not yet clear (and it will likely not be just one ‘model’).  We are more aware of what it is not than what it is and we know that it will look different in every context.

I believe it will be more apostolic than chaplaincy, more about cultivating worshipping missional learning communities (isn’t that what a church of “disciples” really is?), than managing a vender of religious services, or providing private spiritual counsel.  It will be both personal and communal; it will be both liturgical and public.  It will be complex, holistic, rooted in and expressed differently in every particular context.  It will be about organizational leadership that is organic.  And it will be in every way about transformation. 

(See here for more posts where I explore pastors as transformational leaders.)

We need pastors (and frankly leaders in every sector of society) who are continually being transformed who can lead individuals in their own transformation and communities in communal transformation.  We need women and men who are not only gifted in the cure of souls, but also the cultivation of communities of witness and mission. We need more pastors who can teach the faith, cultivate spiritual maturity and equip communities of saints to live and proclaim the reign of God in the mission field that is right past the church parking lot and changing rapidly.  

Leadership is about equipping people to grow so that they can faithfully face the challenges in front of them. We don’t need more chaplains.  We need more leaders. 

We just aren’t sure exactly what they look like yet.

Daring to Differ with Eugene Peterson (and Putting the Organic back in the Organizational)

I love Eugene Peterson. Well, his writings anyway.  But I am going to dare to differ with him on this one. 

Let’s be clear: I am huge Eugene Peterson fan. Huge. I read him and quote him and because of him, I have read people like Wendell Berry, for one. One off-hand comment he made when he came to talk at a “Theological Breakfast” at Fuller Theological Seminary changed my whole trajectory of ministry. And I once made a complete fool of myself in order to sit next to him at a conference where we were both speakers

So, when Rhett Smith posted a link on Facebook to a Gabe Lyon’s interview about Peterson’s take on pastoral work, I immediately clicked on it.  Rhett highlighted these two paragraphs and I want to take issue with one word that  I wish he had omitted: “organizational”.

“The way I understood the uniqueness of the pastoral vocation is that it is insistently personal. You cannot do pastoral work in a programmatic or impersonal or organizational way.
You've got to know the names of these people, know their lives, be in their homes. The unique vocation of pastor is to know those people. And at the same time, to know the scriptures, the whole world of scripture, so that stories of those people get integrated to the stories of scripture.”

 To use a kind of parallelism that renders “organizational” synonymous to “programmatic” or even worse “impersonal” is to miss some of the true challenge, the “mess amidst the mystery” (to use a Peterson term) that is pastoral work. 

Pastors, at least, pastors of congregations, need be both “personal” and “organizational”.  If they are not, then they are likely not pastors.  Spiritual directors, certainly. Evangelists, possibly. Prophets, maybe.  But to be a pastor means to pastor both persons and the communities of which those persons are part.  It is to know the people, the scriptures, AND the organizational systems in which the word struggles to take root, grow in the souls and bear fruit in the lives of actual persons in actual towns and cities and cultures.

To use an illustration that I believe Peterson would both approve and understand (he has famously quoted Wendell Berry on the similarities between pastoral work and farm life), it’s the difference between Johnny Appleseed and an apple farmer. 

The farmer has to attend to both the seeds and the soil, and indeed, even more than the soil.  The farmer must be personally connected to the land yes, but also to the fences, the barns, the silos and the livestock. The farmer must pay personal attention to the environment, the weather, the terrain and the seasons.  The farmer must attend to the whole organic system that is the farm.  In the same way, a pastor can be the very best, most personally attentive, loving, caring, engaged and involved “shepherd” attending to the sheep, but if she doesn’t build a safe sheep pen, the wolves come.

And, let's be clear: For most of us pastors, the organizational part is way harder than the personal part.  We became pastors because we love people and we love the word. Most of us wish that we could somehow limit our calling to knowing our people and knowing the scriptures.  But we also know better. The church organizational system needs as much pastoring as any person and this is exactly where most of us are ill-prepared.  We till the soil, we plant the seed, we water and wait for harvest...and then the fences fail, the roof caves in, the well runs dry and the backhoe needs a new battery.  The bank calls our loan, the government changes its policies,the markets fluctuate, and huge cultural forces seem to conspire against us.  (Sounds like a church, huh?)

The root word for organizational is the same as “organic”.  And perhaps that is a better distinction to make.  With a growing dissatisfaction of impersonal organizational models, the answer isn’t to create a false divide between personal and organizational.  It is to re-personalize the organizational; to learn the ways of “organic” organizational pastoring. To reconsider our organizational models around the actual descriptions of health and fruitfulness that the scriptures teach and humans need.  

And I think Eugene Peterson, himself a farmer, could help us all on thinking about this one.

Clergy Burnout: What’s really causing it?

"The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness."  David Whyte

A recent article in the New York Times on clergy burnout has been getting lots of attention amongst my pastor friends (and some kind church members who are concerned about me).  The article suggests (I think, accurately) that the cause is in large part the unhealthy professional boundaries between pastors and their congregations.  It also points to the reality that in our highly connected technological world, it is extremely difficult for a pastor to ever truly “vacation” from the congregation (Indeed, recently, I received word of the death of an infant in our congregation while I was at 30,000 feet winging my way to Italy on a family vacation.)  The article wisely encourages pastors to get better and more regular rest and offers some good resources.  And I wholeheartedly agree.

But, all the while affirming the need for regular days off, vacations, and sabbaticals (indeed: I enjoyed a glorious one four years ago), I want to ask my colleagues: Is that really what’s causing the burnout?  

The fact is that clergy and congregations have always had bad boundaries.  In previous generations, being eager to work all-hours and having one’s ego fed by the need to be needed was practically a pre-requisite to a call from God to ordination (not that I am affirming that!)  The truth is that most of us LOVE a good pastoral care crisis. It is the place where we are most competent and add the most value.  We pastors thrive on people being spiritual open to the presence of God in life and love nothing better than walking with searching souls in a journey of genuine authenticity.   Most Pastors will never admit this publicly but most of us would rather being officiating funerals than weddings.  (At a funeral people are far more open to spiritual things; at a wedding everybody wants to get on to the reception as quickly as possible.) 

So is the cause of burnout really too many souls in need of care?

A follow up article by a minister suggested that the cause of burnout is congregational consumerism.  People now demand that their pastors be part shrewd cultural commentator and part comic.  We must entertain, inspire and instruct a little, all the while never really challenging the worldview or tribal instincts that make us Christians seem little different than anyone else.  Mostly, people come to church to be affirmed, encouraged and given some tips to get God on their side in their self-improvement strivings for the good life.  We pastors, as my friend Charlie says, are expected to be Tony Robbins with prayer.

Again, I agree and this unhealthy expectation on the part of church-goers is undeniably part of the problem.   But is that the root cause?   Or are pastors and congregations not only suffering from bad boundaries, but also colluding to alleviate a deeper anxiety that plagues us all?

Here is my hunch:

Poet David Whyte famously wrote, “The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness.”
We clergy are burning out because we have lost our wholeheartedness about pastoral ministry. 

By this, I DON’T mean our passion for the gospel or our commitment to the Kingdom of heaven (though that may be true for some).  I also DON’T mean our sense of call to serve people, to preach, teach, counsel, or care (though again, that may be true for some).  What I mean is that most of us are now asked to do a job that we didn’t sign up for, in circumstances that are far different than we expected.  The culture is changing and the church is in crisis and most of us were not trained for this.  And so we are less wholehearted than we once were and are unsure if we are up for the task that has been thrust upon us.

A couple of years ago I spoke for a group of Methodist Christian Educators in Maine.  After three lectures on the Kingdom of God and the Community of Faith, I was asked to do a “speaker talk-back” where anyone could come and ask me questions.  Of the 200 attenders of the conference, 60 came to my talk-back session.  I polled the room to ask what kind of questions they came to ask and soon found that one question was being asked by virtually everyone in the room.  It wasn’t a topic I had raised in my lectures.  It wasn’t a subject that the organizers had even planned to address.  But for the pastors, lay leaders and teachers in the room it was the only one they wanted to talk about:  “How can we keep our churches from dying?”   You could practically see the discouragement written on their faces.  We pastors are working harder than ever and not seeing results.  It’s like we are stuck in an aerobics class from hell.  We just keep running in place.

We pastors are exhausted because we are ambivalent.  We are ambivalent because we are sincerely called by God, deeply committed to minister to souls and eager to speak to the spiritual condition of life and, at the same time, we know that we are rapidly becoming irrelevant to many.  

Most of us were unprepared for how rapidly and demonstrably our culture was changing. Most churches (with a few obvious exceptions) are dying.  We pastors wanted to be at the helms of ships that would head bravely into the adventure of an open sea and a beautiful distant land.  Nobody told us that we were training to become captains of ships that are all slowly going down or being abandoned.  We are ambivalent because this isn’t the ministry or the context that we signed up for and we are burning out because we just don’t know what to do. 

Youth club sports is considered by most parents to be more important for forming the character of our children than the church.  Spirituality has become wildly popular but so deeply individualistic that the fastest growing “religious affiliations” amongst college students are “none” and “spiritual-not-religious”.  We pastors who were trained to teach those who show up, to care for those who call for help, to lead those who will volunteer and to administer the resources of those who willingly give are now called upon to minister to a passing parade of people who treat us like we are but one option in their personal salad-bar of spirituality. 

We are in uncharted terrain trying to lead mostly dying churches into a post-Christian culture that now considers the church as an optional, out of touch and irrelevant relic of the past.  Most people think of pastors not as experts of the soul for the big questions of life, but as curators of the flat earth society or pawns for a political action committee.  To make matters worse, we pastors who used to be held in such high-esteem are now just assumed to be charlatans or pedophiles or widow-fleecing fundraisers. When masses of ordinary people want spiritual insight they turn to Oprah, not the church.  And committed church goers and church leaders are panicked about it. 

Burnout comes from not only bad boundaries and trying to meet unhealthy expectations, but also from an ambivalence born of uncertainty about our own competence and relevance. 

Most of us got into this because of the Bible and people.  We wanted to teach the Bible and care for people.  We felt called to nurture the souls of people and communities of faith.  So when we are doing those things (even with some not-so-good boundaries) we are mostly fine.  Most of us also understand and acknowledge that there is a difference between felt needs and real needs and that there is always a degree of work involved in reaching often distracted people with our messages. (Isn’t that why we work so hard on getting good illustrations, jokes, even videos for our sermons?) 

But, most of us weren’t called and don’t feel equipped to be change-leaders in a rapidly changing world.  But that is the reality and that is our call.  Until we wholeheartedly dedicate ourselves to that reality and that call and all the ways that we pastors are going to need to learn, and grow and change ourselves (grieve our own losses along the way) to be relevant in that changing world, we will just continue to live on the verge of burning out and giving up.

Canoeing the Mountains: Pastors as Leaders into Uncharted Territory

Some thoughts that are beginning to come together in what I think will become my next book...

Canoeing the Mountains: Pastors as Leaders into Uncharted Territory from Fuller Seminary on Vimeo.

Taking the Hill With Grandma: A New Article for PFR

I tend to think of myself as a “Take the Hill” kind of guy.  I like a challenge.  I tend to think of myself as leading “a band of brothers (and sisters)” on an offensive to spread the Kingdom of God.  I get all inspired by “Henry V”-type speeches about charging “once more into the breach.”  I resonate with the idea of a pastor as a “leader of a mission.”

One of my colleagues is really different than I am. Maybe it’s because he’s had enough of “challenging the troops.”  Maybe he’s seen enough pain in lives and congregations to be skeptical of the kinds of ‘charges’ that pastors like me seem to relish. My colleague has been called to minister to a church that is in the middle of a retirement home.  He tells me with a sigh of great satisfaction that he spends his days, “hugging and kissing, teaching and ministering to some of the greatest saints you’ll ever meet.”  Sometimes I am jealous of him and I get the sense that sometimes he thinks he’s supposed to be more like me.

I take the hill, he cares for grandma.  And mostly I think that most of us assume that these are two different types of pastoral ministries.  It is common to hear talk about the differences between “missional” ministry and “chaplaincy”; about “leading” vs. “care-taking”; about “church renewal” vs. “church hospice”.  And in some ways, the distinction is really apt.  But in other ways, I think those distinctions reveal both our own projections about ourselves and a convenient way to avoid what is true about all churches.

To read the rest of the article please visit the PFR website where it is posted for their most recent e-newsletter.

A Picture of Courage: A Final Lesson in Good Disappointing Leadership

My favorite old movie is Casablanca.  It’s a classic film with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, where Bogie owns Rik’s "Café Americain" bar in Casablanca, Morroco.  It takes place during World War 2, and Casablanca was then a French territory under German occupation. 

In one of my favorite scenes a group of Nazi soldiers who are drinking in Rik’s bar gather at the piano and start singing the German national anthem so loudly and without consideration of the number of French citizens sitting glumly around them.  

It is a rude gesture.  Here they are in occupied territory, a conquering army and they are spitting in the face of the French citizens.  The down cast French people sit glumly.  Then Victor Laszlo, a brave Czech resistance fighter (played by Paul Henreid), calmly and deliberately walks over to the band and says, “Play La Marseillaise” (the French National anthem). 

The band members are tentative, they fear the German officers.  But Bogie nods his approval and Laszlo begins to sing at the top of his lungs.  The band comes to their feet, playing their instruments with gusto.  The music soars, and the crowd comes to life.  They do not protest the Nazis.  They do not shout them down in anger.  They just sing so loudly this song of their hearts, that they overwhelm the German soldiers.  With that one strong positive voice, they drown out the destructive voices for that brief moment.

In many ways, what Victor Laszlo did in the midst of the destructive voices in that nightclub in Casablanca is what I believe we are attempting to do in leadership.  We want the positive passions and aspirations to overwhelm the negative, fearful voices that keep our families, companies, organizations or churches oppressed.

In this series about “good disappointing leadership” we have been considering what it takes to “disappoint your own people at a rate they can absorb.”  The strategy that we have been seeking to implement is as follows: “Start with conviction, stay calm, stay connected, and stay the course.”   In the last post we acknowledge that sabotage, by our own people is normal.   Every Victor Laszlo knows that there are ‘countrymen’ who will collude with the opposition, and every leader must recognize that sabotage is not so much a personal attack as the normal, natural reaction of a system that is seeking safety, security and maintaining the status quo (even if that means being “occupied” by the enemy.)  This “failure of nerve” is what leaders must resist in themselves and overcome in their followers.  Victor Laszlo gives us a good picture of how courage can be contagious.

First, leaders must act. Laszlo doesn’t cower at the sound of the German officers singing their songs with such bravado, he stands and heads toward the conflict.  He takes decisive action and determines not to let this moment pass by.  When the heat is on, leaders head TO the kitchen. 

Second, when sabotage or opposition appears, leaders continue to calmly stand on conviction in the face of it.  Laslo doesn’t rant.  He doesn’t rave.  He doesn’t start a fight or call the manager to complain.  He goes to the band (very likely French countrymen, all) and calls them to act with him.  From the back story of the movie, we know that Laszlo has already suffered for his convictions.  He has already spent time in a prison camp, he is being denied exit visas that would take him and his wife to safety.  The authorities have him on a watch list and he is certainly in danger.  But nevertheless, he continues to act on his convictions.  Even, especially in the face of danger, he lives out his calling: Calmly enlisting others to join the cause for freedom.  And once the band begin to play, the crowd comes to its feet and joins the song.  Which reminds us that…

Third, leaders inspire. The root word of "courage" is the Latin word for “heart.”  The actions of a leader should “give heart” to a people who sometimes amidst their fears and frailties “lose heart.”  (For two of several biblical examples, see Deuteronomy 20:3 or Hebrews 12:3)  When a leader can maintain calm and demonstrate courage in the midst of opposition or sabotage, others find the strength to act on their own convictions.  When one voice is willing to sing aloud, other are far more willing to join in.  But let’s be clear.  That act of inspiration only turns up the heat on Laszlo, by further angering the German authorities.  By standing against the opposition, the opposition will now resist him even more, so it is crucial not to miss the whole point of the film (and of this series):

Lastly, leaders don’t act alone.  Yes, Laslo is first to his feet and willing to stand alone. As I wrote in the first installment to this series, leadership begins in a conviction that leads to a stand whether anyone follows or not.  But for a leader to become a leader, someone must follow.  And when Laslo makes his  move to stand against the boorish and demoralizing tactics of the German officers, he doesn’t just stand on a table and try to sing over the voices of the German soldiers, he enlists others in his cause.  The whole film is about how Laszlo slowly wins over the crowd, then Rik himself and finally even Louis, the local French constable who up until then had colluded with the Germans. As a leader, Laszlo's presence and example are a catalyst for others to join the good fight. 

Casablanca is about both love AND war and how relationships and the good fight are always intertwined.  So many scenes are conversations between potential friends, or possible enemies, building trust, working out relationships, discerning character and who can be trusted.  What makes the movie so intriguing are the relational dynamics being worked out amidst the backdrop of conflict--which is, of course, just like "real life." 

(I won’t spoil the ending for those who haven’t seen it—as long as you promise to rent it soon!—but this is especially poignant when you consider the romance between Bogart’s Rik and Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa.) 

The paradox of “Good Disappointing Leadership” is that the very conviction that causes the leader to be willing to “disappoint your own followers at a rate they can absorb” is what ultimately--when handled well--wins “your own followers” to join you in your cause.  If we as leaders start with conviction, stay connected, calm and on-course in the face of opposition, then others around us have both the time and conditions to take on these very convictions as their own and allow, in the words of a truly great disappointing leader "the better angels of our nature” to soar.

(And here's the clip of the whole scene above.  It's a great one...)

Friendly Fire: The Prize for "Good Disappointing" Leadership

“If you are a leader, expect sabotage.”  Edwin Friedman

For that last few posts, we have been parsing a quote from Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky that is worth committing to memory:  “Leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.”  The perceptive and caring leader will invariably wince at the three words in the center of the quote: “your own people.” 

Yikes.  That’s the rub, isn’t it?  It’s one thing to disappoint and anger the “other side”, but another to endure "friendly fire."  We in leadership comfort ourselves in believing that our leadership style will continually “energize our base”; that we will Braveheart-style be able to “rally the troops” to charge.  We just assume that our followers will “have our backs”.

But that is all a comforting fantasy if you are truly trying to bring change to an organizational system.  Whether it is a family, a church, a business, a not-for-profit, or a government, all the best literature makes it clear: To lead, you must be able to disappoint your own people.  But, even doing so well (“at a rate they can absorb”), does NOT preclude them turning on you.  In fact, when you disappoint your own people, they WILL turn on you.  If the change process is “Start with conviction, stay connected, stay calm and stay the course.”  Then when you are focused on “staying the course,” expect that it is “your own people” who are going to try to knock you off-course. 

Sabotage is natural. It’s normal.  “It’s part and parcel of the systemic process of leadership.” Many who sabotage you will even claim that they are doing you a favor by doing so. (Friedman calls these people “peace-mongers” or “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.)  Indeed, one of the prevailing theories of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was that he was simply trying to “force Jesus’ hand” to fulfill the expectations of a first-century messiah.  When Jesus challenged the status quo with his notions of what the Kingdom would be and what a Messiah should do, one of “his own people” (Judas) turned on him. 

“Sabotage is not merely something to be avoided or wished away; instead, it comes with the territory of leading, whether that ‘territory’ is a family or an organization. And a leader’s capacity to recognize sabotage for what it is—that is, a systemic phenomenon connected to the shifting balances in the emotional processes of a relationship system and not to the institution’s specific issues, makeup, or goals—is the key to the kingdom.”  Friedman, p. 11

So, what do we do with sabotage and how do we respond to it so that we can “stay the course” or our convictions for change? 

First, as we said, expect it.  Anticipation is a great defense.  To be aware that sabotage is coming will at least keep us from being surprised when it comes.  Even if everybody is excited in the beginning stages of a new organizational shift, change, initiative, or restructuring, be aware that a time will come when they will certainly not be.  Expecting sabotage enables us to “stay the calm” when it comes.

Second, embrace it as a normal part of an organizational life.  Even the saboteurs aren’t really to blame.  Systems like stability.  You, by bringing change, have upset the emotional equilibrium of the system.  The Israelites wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt once things got rough in the desert.  Systems always look for and find comfort in the familiar. (Do you hear the root word of “family” in familiar?  Every organization has its own “family system” at work.)

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.  They would do this to ANY leader.  By not taking it personally, we then can keep monitoring ourselves (AH! we are back there again, aren’t we?) and keep from reacting in a way that will make the situation worse.  By depersonalizing the attack, you are much more likely to stay both calm and connected even to the saboteurs, enabling you to make much better decisions as you stay the course of change.

Fourth, focus your attention on the emotionally strong, not the saboteurs.  We are so focused on quieting our critics, appeasing our accusers and shielding ourselves from the friendly fire that it often knocks us off-course.  While we need to “stay connected” to the “saboteurs” (“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”), what actually keeps the change process going is investing even more time in those who are committed to growing, adapting and changing for good.  Keep building healthy alliances with those who are emotionally mature, share your convictions, and they will join you in the needed change.  Find other calm, courageous people and strengthen and support them.  As you see them begin to grow and change, it will inspire you to stay on course, also. 

Lastly, keep “staying calm and connected” so you can, stay on course. (again!)  Endure.  Stick with it.  Leading change is a PROCESS that is not accomplished quickly and the moments of sabotage are actually 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 systems’ resilience.  If you as a leader can help them work through their own sabotaging instincts, then the system will change and the saboteurs will become change-leaders themselves. 

A final word on sabotage:  This is a good place to talk about courage.  All the best leadership literature emphasizes the need for courage.  Stuck systems, bad government, corrupt organizations, dysfunctional families and hypocritical churches, all have at least one thing in common:  There is, as Ed Friedman, describes it, a colossal “failure of nerve” in leadership.  It takes courage to stay true to convictions.  It takes courage to stay calm and connected in the face of friendly fire. And it takes enduring, repeated acts of courage to stay the course and keep others on course when they are disappointed in you as a leader. 

In my next post, I will end this series with a reflection on one of my favorite pictures of courage.

Is That a Lion or Not: Another Lesson for Good Disappointing Leadership

In the harsh mid-summer African heat, a herd of impala find an increasingly rare water hole.  They rush to drink, crowding in, fearful of not getting enough water to sustain them.  Suddenly, one impala raises his head in high alert.  Immediately every other Impala stops drinking, and stands at attention.  No impala moves, none utter a sound. But the tension is palpable, there seems to be a crackle of electricity in the air.  Every impala at that moment has a life or death decision to make:  “Is that a lion or not?”

If there is a lion lurking near that whole and they don’t run,  they become lion lunch. If there is NOT a lion lurking near the whole and they DO run, they lose their place at the watering hole and could die of thirst. If there is a lion and they do run, or if there is NOT a lion and they do not run, they live another day.  But all that matters is: “Is that a lion or not?”

And everything in their impala-beings is focused on making that crucial life and death decision.  Just like they do every day. Numerous times a day.

Part of what helps the impala make that decision is the “herd energy”, the “animal anxiety” that permeates the group and that causes them to share listening, hearing, deciding together.  And depending upon how the “system” responds to anxiety is one of the key factors for the health and ability to weather threats and face changes in climate or challenges in terrain for a herd, a family, a church or organization.

In this series, we have been looking at what it takes to be a “good disappointing leader”, that is what it takes to “disappoint your own people at a rate they can absorb” so that they will take on the challenges, make the changes and continue to move toward the goals (or watering holes) that will insure their vitality, longevity and “mission” of the family, church, organization or company.  Over the last few posts we have been examining the leadership mantra:  "Start with a conviction, stay connected, stay calm and stay the course."  In my last post, I discussed the leader as “Crockpot thermostat” regulating the heat of a system so that it will continue toward transformation without scorching and ruining the system.

A significant part of “staying calm” and “regulating heat” specifically, is in understanding that the “heat” that most hinders organizational systems from moving toward their aspirations and goals is anxiety.  Anxiety isn’t a bad thing; it’s a ‘creaturely’ thing. It just is. We feel anxious when we are reacting to a threat that is either real or imagined.  Sometimes the anxiety is a gift that tells us that there is something bad that is threatening the clan (A fire alarm going off, the sixth sense that someone is lying to you, the motivation to lose weight when the doctor tells you that your cholesterol is so high you wont live to see grandchildren.) This is called “acute anxiety.”  It motivates us to do something to get ourselves or our loved ones out of danger (for example, when there is a lion at the watering hole.)

“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.”  (Jeffrey Miller, The Anxious Organization: Why smart companies do dumb things, p. 14)

But the key difference between animals and humans is that with humans real or “acute anxiety” often becomes “chronic anxiety”, lingering in a family or social system even after the threat is gone.  Acute anxiety is a pervasive stance of being that continues even after the threat is gone.  (Soldiers with post-traumatic stress who wake up on high alert even while safe at home in their beds, depression-era senior citizens who stock up on eggs or toilet paper years later, an adult who grew up in an abusive home who winces every time someone raises their voice even the smallest bit.)  Chronic anxiety is present when the threats of the past continue to hold power even though the system is no longer really in danger. 

There have been lots of studies about the affects of stress and anxiety in life today.  We are taught good stress reducing tricks like exercise or deep breathing or taking “mini-vacations” while at our desks, lowering our anxiousness by thinking of a ‘happy place.’  These things are all good for our personal well-being.  But in the midst of leading change, they miss the point.

For leaders, the point of “calming down” is not to feel better; it’s to make better decisions.  And when people are too “hot”, they don’t. The only issue is: Is there a lion or not? Is there really a threat or are we making this up?  Do we really need to run, or should we stay here and get water and then calmly continue our journey? Do we really need to be this angry, fearful, defensive or is there a better decision that we can make that will take us where we want to go? 

For leaders, this is the point to remember about anxiety: People who are overly or chronically anxious don’t make good decisions.  When anxiety spikes we revert to more “primitive” ways of being.  We fight, we flee, we freeze.  We turn on each other instead of working together.  We run from danger and leave others to face the lions alone.  Or we capitulate and allow the herd to be overrun.

Peter Steinke: “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.”

Perhaps the most important task of leadership is to cultivate the ability to make good decisions.  Good, wise, discerning, decisions for the sake of both the health and mission of the herd.  And that will take both “regulating the heat” and thinking well while doing so. 

Both of which are necessary to face the absolutely unexpected threat that is coming to knock you "off course" as you lead your people.  Which is where we will pick this up next.

Dancing While Standing Still

A quote to ponder as we continue to consider what it means to be a "good disappointing leader" who can "stand the heat and stay in the kitchen" of anxiety and conflict by staying connected and calm:

You  may have to exercise uncommon restraint to "just stand  there" when a group falls into chaos and blames it on you;  or when somebody says something divisive and everybody  looks to you to fix it; or when people split over goals, question your authority, or stereotype each other to the point where work halts. You can, however, learn to deal skillfully with the unexpected if you are willing to persist in working on yourself.…The trick is to change the inner dialogue from anxiety to observing without having to fix everything.

(Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff, Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter)

Leaders as Crockpot Thermostats

When we talk about “standing the heat and staying in the kitchen”, most of us in leadership know that there is a constant threat of being burned.  All one has to do is remember the “Town Hall Meetings” on the topic of heath care reform last summer and you’ll start to wither at the thought of a being a “stay connected” leader in the face of a screaming constituent.  But Senator Arlen Specter gives us a good picture of what it means to be a “good disappointing leader.” 

To recap, Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky wrote, “Leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.”  To do so well, I have suggested is to live out the following maxim:

Start by acting on conviction, stay connected, stay calm, stay the course.

After spending some time on the first two parts of that statement in previous posts, today we’ll look at what may be for many of us the hardest bit of all: Staying calm.  Especially, staying calm while staying connected when others about you are most definitely not. 

First of all, why?  Why even stay calm?  Aren’t there so many great illustrations of passionate and prophetic leaders who lose their cool?  Indeed, isn’t this what most of us think leadership is?  From the 1970's movie Network to so much political discourse today, we assume that if change is going to come, somebody is going to have stand up and yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” 

While that kind of passion is often very prophetic, it’s not necessarily effective in terms of leadership.  It may feel good to shout down the crowd, but it actually tends to only make things worse. 

While the Lone Rangers and John the Baptists have the luxury of leading a loyal Tonto or two, most of us called into leadership must do so with constituents and congregations who are often very resistant to being led.  A firm denouncement or a stirring call to action goes from being an act of a prophet to an act of a leader when those around us follow our lead.  Most of the time when things get heated, people stop following and start fighting or fleeing. While passion has its place for inspiring the committed and prodding the hesitant, (see Braveheart or Henry V, for example), far more often the call of the leader that is disappointing his or her “own people at a rate they can handle” requires a more calm, confident presence in the middle of a highly anxious, instinctively reactive situation that threatens to burn everyone.

To better understand this, think of bringing good, healthy change to an organization, family, church, or business like cooking a stew in a Crockpot.  Every person is a like a hard raw vegetable or a firm piece of uncooked meat.  Each has their own identities, opinions and beliefs.  And in order for the pieces of food to become a meal that will feed a hungry tribe, each bit must be transformed at least a bit.  Each vegetable must become softened, the meat must share its flavor and each morsel must contribute to a good healthy sauce for all to share.  Without enough heat, nothing changes.  Too much heat and it burns.  In either case, nobody is fed. 

A leader’s job is to regulate the heat.  It’s to be a thermostat on the Crockpot.  To keep enough heat in the system so that things begin to change, but not enough that individual parts get scorched.  When we are all so calm that we are comfortable, we don’t want to go anywhere.  When we are camped under a tree in the shade, even staying in the wilderness seems better than heading off for the Promised Land.  But when the heat turns up, we begin to move toward the land of milk and honey that we really long for. At the same time, if the sun is scorching, it saps all motivation for moving.  In the same way, the heat of the Crockpot, properly regulated over a long period of time lets the transformation occur naturally without ruining the whole thing.  (How many good ideas have been shelved because the system got so “burned” that we vowed “never to do THAT again”?)

Regulating the heat is a delicate art that is built around one crucial leadership skill: Regulating ourselves.  We don’t ACT like a thermostat, we ARE thermostats.  We regulate the heat by monitoring and regulating ourselves in the middle of the stew.  (Think about it: It really is impossible to monitor anyone else’s anxiety and anger, isn’t it?  It really doesn’t do any good to tell someone to “Calm down!” does it?  Don’t believe me?  Try it on your spouse next time you two are in a heated argument.)

Calm, like anxiety, is contagious. 

If the system is too “cool” and needs more heated urgency to change then the leader’s own ‘heat’ (when they are connected to followers) begins to get things "cooking" (which is what stirring speeches and prophetic denouncements CAN do).  But, when the system gets too “hot” and people are in danger of burning each other or bailing out of the change process, the very presence of a calm, connected leader cools the system down so that people can tolerate staying on course. 

Now trying to be perfectly calm can create it’s own stress and anxiety.  The very last thing I need to do is to put more pressure on myself to “calm down” when I am getting anxious enough already (Just try and stop sweating or stammering when you are starting to “feel the heat” in the middle of a conflict)  So, as a leader who often gets to walk into “hot kitchens” (what is a church patio but a big family kitchen table?) I try to focus on a more modest goal: Not being perfectly calm, but being just a bit less anxious than everyone else.  All I want is for my presence to turn the thermostat down one click on the dial.   

Peter Steinke again (link): “The leader’s ‘presence’ can have a calming influence on reactive behavior. Rather than reacting to the reactivity of others, leaders with self-composure and self-awareness both exhibit and elicit a more thoughtful response"  (emphasis mine).

And getting the family, organization, board, Session or company to make “thoughtful responses” to move toward goals and objectives is the main work of the leader trying to bring change.  In my next post, I’ll write about how “staying calm” is about detecting lions and deciding about waterholes, but between now and then, consider this:

If we are going to ‘stand the heat and dance in the kitchen” this stay-connected and stay-calm two-step, is more about staying put and staying self-aware than anything else.  What do I need to do within myself to be the least anxious presence in the room?