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.