The High Cost of Leading

I met him in the lobby and asked him about his volunteer position. He shared with me that he seemed to have lost his passion…not for the work, but for leading his team. One of his friends had observed, “It sounds like you’ve been wounded.” Reflecting with me, he realized that he had been wounded. There had been communication, but when it came down to the actual event, there had been conflict. It had been painful.

I reflected to him, “That’s the cost of leadership. It hurts. Leaders have to face angry people and that’s how they serve.” Years ago when I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I had studied servant leadership in multiple staff churches down the west coast. My research proved a statistical relationship between the senior pastor being a servant leader and how well the staff performed. That, coupled with a Biblical study of servant leadership comprised what turned into a book. However, it wasn’t until several years after I’d written my study that I learned what it means for a servant leader to “wash feet.” I worked with a pastor who was decisive. The choices were sometimes difficult and painful. But, he made them. I learned: the dirty work that leaders do and that marks them as leaders is making decisions. Decisions change things. And changes make some people unhappy. Leadership faces opposition, holds the course, and sticks it out when people don’t like the choices. Leaders don’t take leadership positions to make people happy. They take them to lead people to a future better than today, most of the time kicking and screaming.

It is precisely because of this cost inherent in the leadership task that many people avoid leadership positions. They are willing to follow, but, somehow, they know that leaders are targets. People shoot at them. And, that’s a price too high for some to pay. Moses didn’t want to be a leader. He was content living in the desert, herding the sheep. At least, the sheep didn’t bite. God, however, called him to Egypt to lead his people out of slavery. Moses’ leadership involved conflict: conflict with Pharaoh and conflict with his own followers. The account of the wilderness wanderings is 40 years of conflict. The cost of leadership, as Moses showed us, is facing angry people, complaining people, rebellious people. The problems they bring to you can eat your lunch and leave your stomach in knots…far into the small hours of the morning. That’s the cost of leadership.

Some leaders take the position of leading, but try to keep the followers happy. They make their decision based on what will keep peace not what will make progress. These leaders have a leadership position, but because the cost of leadership (angry people who jump ship) is too high, they actually abdicate leadership and become followers. Followers of people, not followers of God; The ship floats, but goes nowhere.

A friend who used to referee high school basketball games once told me, “When the coach puts his foot on the floor, the referee’s job is to take a step toward the coach, not a step back. Always step into the conflict.” That’s the task of leadership…stepping into the conflict, taking charge, making decisions that conform to God, to right, to growth, to progress, and paying the price of people not liking it, not liking you, getting angry, and sometimes leaving you to carry on to God’s goal without them. Godly leaders fix their eye on the One who leads them…
PHP 2:8 taking the very nature of a servant…And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!
Mark 10: 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

My friend seemed encouraged. I hope you are, too.

Wrong Direction

We were there to watch Randy. Well, maybe really to get a Felix bobblehead doll. Or, perhaps it was just to celebrate significant milestones in our 3 lives (My son, my grandson-his nephew-and I all share April birthdays). Whatever, we took in a Mariners game Friday night. It was a real nail biter…if you can call a 1-1 tie in the 9th a nail biter. I just wondered if the M’s would ever unload those loaded bases some way besides a third out.

I spent the 4th inning trying to find some food. First I took Alden down (row 25 in Section 321 is a loooonnnnngggg way up there…now I understand why they call them “view” seats!) to find some Dippin’ Dots. I also was looking for raspberry lemonade for Matt, and probably a 3 piece at the fish establishment for me. We walked halfway around the stadium concourse to find Alden’s Dippin’ Dots…then back to our section so he could watch the game. Then I retraced my steps looking for ice cream (Matt changed his order, and I never could find that raspberry lemonade)…no one sells ice cream, but I did find the 3 piece. I burned through the top of the 4th, then the bottom of the 4th, and still no ice cream…but I was enjoying that 3 piece (if you can call saltless fries enjoyable).

I was standing in front of my section in the concourse, getting ready to tell Matt I had struck out when I decided I’d look in the opposite direction than I had gone. There, one section away was a sign that said, “Ice Cream.” If I had only looked that direction to start, I would have saved myself a lot of steps, a lot of time, and been back to my seat to enjoy the game with the guys. But, I had walked halfway around the stadium twice (once for Alden, once for me), only to find the ice cream within 50 feet of my starting point!

Perhaps you’ve been there. You set out to find something sweet, some peace, some satisfaction, something to fill that empty spot in your heart. You went looking for it in all sorts of places, none of which answered your true need. You found plenty of things that would substitute, but not what you really needed. You looked in multiple places, but struck out. You tried friends…but came up empty. You tried popularity…but it didn’t deliver. You tried work…but it left you stranded. You tried substances…but they left you tied up like a Randy Johnson fastball. You tried spending, and got caught off base. So, you give up. You return to where you started.

Why not look in the other direction? How I wished I had just looked the other way when I came out of the section the other night. I could have saved myself a lot of time spent walking around. Maybe right now look in the other direction, before you set off on your effort to find what satisfies.

The Bible says, There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Prov. 14:12) Jesus said, “I am the way…” (John 14:6)

Jesus is there all the time. You just might find what you are looking for and save yourself a lot of trouble.

By the way…Matt got his ice cream! And, finally in the 12th the Mariners unloaded the bases enough to stagger to a 2-1 victory!

On a Rocky Place

Monday we took a boat trip with our friends from Bellingham on board the Carol Lee…named after their daughter who is named after the Carol Lee in my life. It is a 40 foot, canoe-stern, ocean-going sailing yacht. We left Squalicum Harbor about 11:30 and arrived at Eagle Harbor on Cypress Island about 1:30 for lunch (on board). We then went ashore in the dingy and hiked a mile up the island to Duck Lake on an old logging road/trail, taking pictures of moss, wild flowers, trees, and rocks on the way. The Lilly pads were blooming on the lake. We returned via another steeper, log skid path (these roads are all grown up now, having been logged probably in the early 1900’s. The land is now part of the State of Washington’s Department of Natural Resources. They are a treasure and the hike is beautiful.) to the interior part of Eagle Harbor…looking at giraffe heads in driftwood, finding domestic flowers gone wild from old homesteads, and snapping a few shots of the Carol Lee at anchor.

It was here that we found these plants blooming on a rock face. They were probably the most beautiful on the entire walk. I was struck by how a very hard surface can yield enough nutrients and base for something really beautiful. How like our lives…we may find ourselves in very hard places, mounted, so-to-speak, on a barren, rocky place, and yet God can make us bloom beautifully. Our circumstances can be a backdrop for greater beauty, and even if we are in a hard place, God can still use us to make life beautiful for those around us. Over time, our root system will even soften up the rocky place, and make it more useful for other things around us.
2 Cor. 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Courage

I was there, but I don’t remember any of the details. And, I wonder now about what it must have been like for her: Two children already, and not even a year since her husband who had separated from her had returned and moved her 1000 miles away from her family to an isolated town in Eastern Oregon. She had to find new friends and build a life in one rented house after another. How could she not have felt alone and overwhelmed? And then I came along. I don’t think I ever really appreciated all that she did…but I remember…living in houses without running water, holding my forehead when I was sick, early mornings getting us off to school, or out the door at 6 AM to work as a family in the strawberry and bean fields of Western Oregon, uprooted again from all friends to an isolated house built on a dirt foundation, with a kitchen sink that drained into a trough under the house. She was not perfect; she was demanding. She inherited her father’s capacity to see things one way…her way. She could sling the words right back at her husband as good as any lumberjack. But, she did teach me to pray, and to never use those words myself! And, eventually, slowly, Jesus seeped into her life and made changes. And she had to put up with 4 boys…boys who would pull practical jokes on her like squirting Ketchup on one another to simulate blood, boys that would sass back. Then I got involved in my own life…and she was gone way too early, 25 years ago next month. And although I took the opportunity to thank her, I’m not sure I really took the opportunity to truly appreciate her. I tended to focus too much on negatives. But she did contribute 50% of my genetic pool. And God used her to shape my life way more than that in many ways that I don’t even realize.

I think of great women of courage: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony. But I also think of a woman who had daily courage…who lived strong in spite of poverty, who stuck with a husband who threw away his false teeth and lived without them, who cooled off their arguments with a pail of water. My mother forged a life during difficult days. She taught me about courage.

It takes courage to stand strong in the story life deals you and to stay at it even when it is difficult and nothing goes the way you planned. God has a story for all of us. It contains challenges and risks. We are faced with almost daily temptations to take the easy way out. We go through many days when it seems like we are walking alone. But, when you look back, you see God’s footprints beside yours. That’s the story of a Woman of courage named Hadassah. You know her by her Persian name, Esther. Her story and her most famous words call us to courage: "I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish."4:16

We are tempted to take the easy road. God calls us to the hard road. We are tempted to take the safe road. God calls us to the risky road. God shows up in our lives only when we are on the risky, hard road called “perishing.” Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. John 12:24