Termination meetings -- those uncomfortable sessions in which an administrator tells an employee that he or she is being fired -- are primarily shaped by legal considerations these days. The instructions from the HR office are clear: Make sure that all the necessary paperwork is prepared. Get right to the point, saying as little as possible. Don't talk about how difficult it was to come to the decision.
As a seminary president, I had more than my share of those sessions. Typically, the meetings lasted at most for 10 minutes, given the rules I had to follow. But more than once, I couldn't sleep the night before because of my own anxiety and dread.
I understand the rationale for the rules and the need to avoid extended explanations. But it always troubled me that in the very moment when the pastoral aspects of leadership were most needed, they were most forbidden by legal considerations.
In thinking about and preparing for those moments, I often reflected upon some advice that David Allan Hubbard, my predecessor in the Fuller presidency, once gave me.
"Leaders do not inflict pain," he said. "They bear pain."
Interpreted literally, of course, Hubbard's advice was simply wrong, I now realize. There is no way to fire an employee without inflicting pain. Arguably, it makes more sense to say that leaders do not inflict pain without also bearing pain.
That would have helped me understand that my sleepless night perhaps compensated at least a little for the pain I would be causing the employee whom I would fire the next day. That person suffered, but so did I.
But on a more profound level, David had it exactly right. Had I kept that employee on the job, the seminary I was leading would have suffered unnecessary pain. In almost every case, the employee in question was a good human being, a child of God with many gifts.
The Rev. Dr. Richard J. Mouw is a professor at and former president of Fuller Theological Seminary.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Jeffrey Jones' Heart, Mind and Strength offers theoretical and practical insights designed to help you strike a balance between outside forces, over which you have little or no control, and your personal beliefs, which shape your relationships and actions as a leader.
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The Top Ten Risk Areas for Churches
A Church Network webinar
with Deborah Wipf Ike
May 28 at 2:30 p.m. EDT
In the life of congregations, risks aren't 100% preventable.
But there are practical steps you can take to greatly reduce the likelihood they'll occur or to reduce the impact if they do. This is where risk management comes into the picture. It takes work and consistent effort, but it doesn't require a team of experts to put into place.
Learn more and register »
Ideas that Impact: The Challenges of Leadership
"Leading Theologically: Does It Really Matter?" by R. Scott Golglazier
Clergy leadership should be measured not merely by how well the church is administered or how many new members are received or how many pastoral calls are completed. All of that is important, but if there is such a thing as a "calling," then clergy should be about the business of creating religious community -- one of theological exploration and discourse.
As a seminary president, I had more than my share of those sessions. Typically, the meetings lasted at most for 10 minutes, given the rules I had to follow. But more than once, I couldn't sleep the night before because of my own anxiety and dread.
I understand the rationale for the rules and the need to avoid extended explanations. But it always troubled me that in the very moment when the pastoral aspects of leadership were most needed, they were most forbidden by legal considerations.
In thinking about and preparing for those moments, I often reflected upon some advice that David Allan Hubbard, my predecessor in the Fuller presidency, once gave me.
"Leaders do not inflict pain," he said. "They bear pain."
Interpreted literally, of course, Hubbard's advice was simply wrong, I now realize. There is no way to fire an employee without inflicting pain. Arguably, it makes more sense to say that leaders do not inflict pain without also bearing pain.
That would have helped me understand that my sleepless night perhaps compensated at least a little for the pain I would be causing the employee whom I would fire the next day. That person suffered, but so did I.
But on a more profound level, David had it exactly right. Had I kept that employee on the job, the seminary I was leading would have suffered unnecessary pain. In almost every case, the employee in question was a good human being, a child of God with many gifts.
But in each instance, I judged that the person did not have the right set of gifts to do what the institution needed to be done. In order not to inflict pain on the seminary, then, I had to bear the pain of firing an employee, of inflicting pain on another human being.
David’s piece of wisdom may seem strange in the broader culture of leadership today. Most of us are familiar with the TV shows where, with much bravado, a CEO proclaims, “You’re fired!” Or a talent judge shouts disparagingly, “That’s a no!” Or a bachelor declares, “You’re going home!” The people being rejected -- whatever their motives for appearing before the cameras -- slink off with dashed hopes, humiliated before millions of viewers.
We desperately need alternative models of leadership, of people who can demonstrate what it is like to bear the pain of others.
I have no business complaining about bearing other people’s pain. I know that I’ve caused much pain in my lifetime -- both necessary and unnecessary -- enough that even hundreds of sleepless nights and a pond of tears couldn’t begin to compensate.
Without meaning to let myself off the hook, all of us in leadership positions will unavoidably cause pain in the lives of others. The real wisdom in David’s counsel is that we must work hard not to give in to the temptation to inflict unnecessary pain. A good leader cannot be motivated by a desire to get even, or to show someone who is boss. That is obvious.
But we must also work hard not to give in to the temptation to reduce the necessary pain. This is the kind of pain that takes place when we cannot, on the advice of our lawyers, explain and justify to the other why we have made the termination decision that is now causing him or her such pain. In situations where I had to let an employee go, I often could have explained my case to that person or to others who disagreed with my decision in a way that would have made me look better. But the institution had good reasons why I should not explain myself. In such moments, remaining silent is also a form of bearing pain.
It isn’t difficult to see the theological lesson here. There’s a line I once heard -- admittedly, an irreverent one -- that has stuck with me: “God is no sadist. The worst thing you can say about the God of the Bible is that he is a masochist.”
That makes good theological sense. The book of Job takes on the issue of God’s relationship to human pain, but it does not allow us to put aside our worries that God may take some kind of satisfaction in doing whatever he wants to us for his own inscrutable reasons. Yet the incarnation demonstrates that God intended all along to enter into our condition to bear the full burden of human pain. God takes upon himself human flesh, as the Suffering Servant, the Man of Sorrows, who goes to great lengths to become acquainted with our grief.
It is not always easy to know what it means to “be like Jesus” in specific contexts of leadership. But this much seems obvious: God-honoring leadership requires the willingness to bear the pain of others.
Read more »The Rev. Dr. Richard J. Mouw is a professor at and former president of Fuller Theological Seminary.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Buy the book
Continue Learning with The Church Network
A Church Network webinar
with Deborah Wipf Ike
May 28 at 2:30 p.m. EDT
In the life of congregations, risks aren't 100% preventable.
But there are practical steps you can take to greatly reduce the likelihood they'll occur or to reduce the impact if they do. This is where risk management comes into the picture. It takes work and consistent effort, but it doesn't require a team of experts to put into place.
Learn more and register »
Ideas that Impact: The Challenges of Leadership
"Leading Theologically: Does It Really Matter?" by R. Scott Golglazier
Clergy leadership should be measured not merely by how well the church is administered or how many new members are received or how many pastoral calls are completed. All of that is important, but if there is such a thing as a "calling," then clergy should be about the business of creating religious community -- one of theological exploration and discourse.
Juxtaposing two of the most significant religion stories of this past summer might seem as odd as combining peanut butter and tuna fish. What common element links the election of a gay bishop in the Episcopal Church and a controversial movie about the crucifixion of Jesus produced by Hollywood star Mel Gibson? Despite the odd pairing, I think these two stories reveal a third story—the presence of a deep fissure running through the landscape of American Christianity, one that is testing and reshaping the nature of Christian faith, and therefore creating a leadership challenge to ministers in congregational settings. Precisely because of this challenge, churches are desperate not only for leadership, but particularly for theological leadership from clergy.
Cultural Lightning Rod
In the case of Bishop V. Eugene Robinson, who was consecrated November 2, 2003 in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, his story has become a cultural lightning rod for the complex issue of homosexuality and the church. What one thinks about the particulars of this issue is not within the purview of this article. My concern is that the issue itself is an example of why the church needs theological leadership at the congregational level.
Armed with a literal reading of the Bible, some Christians declare, often with acrimonious enthusiasm, that homosexuality is a sin and that homosexuals are condemned by God. Behind this interpretation lies the belief that the Bible is the literal word of God and that it has come to the world without error. Others believe that the Bible is condemning exploitive behavior—not a particular sexual orientation, but behavior that is abusive and aggressive. In the centuries and cultures in which the Bible was written, people couldn’t have comprehended a person’s “being” homosexual in any psychological or physiological sense. In addition, if the gospel of Christ is about God’s gracious welcome, then the church should be welcoming to all people—including people of different sexual orientations.
Not surprisingly, Christians on opposite sides of the issue often find themselves sitting side by side in the congregation and listening to the same sermon on Sunday morning. The first group understands God’s will as an ancient standard that must be followed strictly, while others argue that God is “in process” with the church, inspiring compassion and understanding for an evolving human situation. This issue, like many others, swirls about in local churches, as well as outside organized religion. Sadly, complex theological issues often receive only superficial treatment on the six o’clock news. The focus is often on titillating controversy rather than on theological complexity. This kind of media superficiality, however, opens an opportunity for ministers as they work with congregations. The challenge is to help churches become learning communities where theological ideas can be explored in serious and respectful ways.
An Outcry over a Film
The same dynamics are at play in relation to Mel Gibson’s much disputed (but not-yet-released) film on the crucifixion of Jesus. Gibson, a fundamentalist Catholic, has made a film that slavishly (and graphically) follows the biblical accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. Although, as I write, it has been seen by only a limited number of religious leaders, the film clearly has created an enormous theological stir within both print and electronic media because it opens an ancient theological wound in portraying the Jews as killers of the Son of God.
Gibson seems oblivious to the fact that biblical “accounts” of the crucifixion are quite unlike the reasonably accurate, contemporary blow-by-blow journalistic reports or “accounts” of a trial and execution. Often the Gospel writers differ in their recounting of details about the death of Jesus. They also emphasize differing theological motifs within their Passion narratives. For the most part, the Gospel writers were more concerned with what was happening at the end of the first century of the Christian era in their own churches than with what happened on the day Jesus was crucified. This is not to suggest that the biblical accounts of crucifixion are without historical reliability. In my estimation, that would overstate the case. At the same time, it’s fair to say that the gospels are more theological documents than strict histories.
Throughout the summer, Gibson insisted that he was trying to make a movie true to the biblical accounts of the crucifixion, but what he apparently wound up doing was proliferating one of the most haunting falsehoods in Christian history—namely, the notion that the Jews killed Jesus. The church is still trying to come to terms with the damage this dimension of Christian theology has done to the world. Making villains of the Jews, primarily in the Gospel of John, reflects a strained relationship between the church and the synagogue at the end of the first century, and not a strict reflection of historical fact surrounding the death of Jesus.
Developing Communities of Growth
Mel Gibson’s movie, which has received wide discussion in the national media, offers another theological opportunity for clergy to exhibit leadership within their congregations. How one feels about the issue or what position one finally takes is not nearly as important as congregations’ addressing such matters in honest and engaging ways. How can the church become a place where issues such as anti-Judaism are understood from a theological perspective? How can communities of faith grow into communities of dialogue, moving past old labels of “liberal” and “conservative” to become settings where people learn together?
Important theological dialogue can take place within local churches, but rarely does it happen without well-thought-out leadership from clergy. These two major news stories from summer 2003 suggest that two kinds of churches are slowly developing in American culture—“answer” churches and “journey” churches.1 Answer churches find their beliefs neatly packaged in the Bible; therefore their approach becomes adherence to well-defined beliefs. Journey churches, on the other hand, understand faith as an ongoing discovery. They understand that listening to the Bible is a process (yes, the Bible is taken seriously in journey churches); but in addition to heeding the Bible, journey churches listen for God’s voice in the continuing development of culture.
A Polarized Church
I’m not sure the Christian landscape has ever been more polarized than it is now, and I don’t anticipate its becoming less divided in the future. Yet because the landscape is, at base, a theological one, clergy have an opportunity to initiate responsible religious dialogue within their churches. Sometimes theological issues emerge from the church itself; at other times, issues are thrust upon the church by a media blitz. Either way, the opportunity for lively, meaningful, and respectful theological conversation will present itself.
Theological leadership can be exhibited in a variety of ways. First and foremost, theological leadership is manifested not so much by anything the minister does, but by virtue of who he or she is. When a minister thinks theologically and follows the larger arcs of meaning that have always been a part of religious life, the congregation soon picks up on this approach and realizes that the pastor has a certain spiritual and intellectual fire burning inside his or her being. It has a luminous quality. Whether the minister is standing in the pulpit, officiating at a wedding, or engaged in casual conversation in the parking lot, the glow of theological energy is present.
To use an analogy, some chefs work in the kitchen because it is their job. Other chefs, however, are always thinking creatively about food. They talk to their customers about it and seek out conversations with other chefs and even travel to learn more. When you are around this kind of chef, it takes about five minutes to discover that food is much more than a job; it’s a passion.
Theological Reflection as Passion
In much the same way, congregations notice if theological reflection is part of their pastor’s passion, if it’s an ongoing experience for the minister and not something that was finished back in seminary. When the minister continues to explore theologically—always curious, always pushing, probing, and reading—the congregation begins to see a fresh faith that matters to our world today. The minister is then viewed by the congregation not merely as a pastor or administrator, but as an interpreter of the Christian faith amid the people of God.
When theological reflection comes from the essential center of a minister, it radiates through the act of preaching. There is, to be sure, a place for the courageous, prophetic sermon, but the best preaching creates an invitation for the listener to think and feel, to consider how God and world are intersecting in any given issue. The invitation is not “Listen to me because I have all the answers.” Rather, it is more like “Join me on the journey as I try to understand my faith in light of what is happening in my church and world.” Even when the issue is as complex as homosexuality, the minister can speak about it in a way that gives people room to struggle and grow. Edges of such theological issues have to be pushed. At the same time, the theological conclusion finally reached is not nearly so important as the theological process that has been engaged.
Beyond Preaching
The issues of homosexuality or a movie about Jesus’ crucifixion gives rise to all kinds of religious questions: What is the nature of the Bible? In what way is the Bible authoritative in the life of the church? How do we understand modern psychology in light of ancient concepts about humanity? What claim does the spirit of Jesus have on the church community, particularly in relation to the acceptance of others? Not only can preaching become a model of theological exploration; it can inspire dialogue by addressing the real issues simmering in our culture. But beyond preaching, ministers can foster theological dialogue and transformation in other ways. Perhaps a few examples from my experience at University Christian Church in Fort Worth will illustrate:
We have created a dialogue for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths. This project is not only good for our own church; it also sends out signals to the larger Fort Worth community that our congregation is a place where faith is taken seriously and inclusively.
A few years ago, recognizing that our church’s elders basically spent their meetings talking about business items nonstop, we created elder dialogue sessions devoted to nothing but a particular theological topic. In recent years, we have explored such topics as prayer, Christology, and the nature of religious authority. Interestingly enough, the elders of the church had been bored with their business sessions for years and were glad to have a chance to learn about their faith. This year we are using an excellent book titled How to Think Theologically.2 The goal of these sessions is not to reach total agreement on a theological topic; it is to help these lay leaders become more theologically aware.
We have created continuing programs of theological reflection around film, literature, and art, allowing us to explore intersections of faith and culture. We have read books by Elie Wiesel, Chaim Potok, Anne Lamott and James Carroll, to name a few. We have explored such movies as Life is Beautiful and As Good As It Gets to understand faith and redemption. We also have regular outings to museums to discover religious themes in art.
We have sponsored travel experiences ranging from a women’s visit to the border areas of Mexico and Texas to study the plight of immigrant families, to intergenerational study trips to Italy, where families explored some of the great Christian art traditions in Florence and Rome. Even our service-type trips lend themselves to theological reflection.
We have also created successful theological dialogue by using our small-group ministry of ChristCare. These small groups always study the sermon text that I will use on Sunday morning. This practice creates a dialogue—not only with the biblical text but also with the larger worship life of the church. Moreover, it creates a theological dialogue between laypeople and senior minister. Our church is greatly enhanced by the fact that people show up on Sunday already in conversation with the theme of the morning.
Teaching People to Outgrow Anti-Judaism
There are always theological needs within the church, and therefore, always opportunities for reflection in the life of Christians. Perhaps this is my own bias, but given that so much of today’s religious landscape is shaped by a more literal, fundamentalist approach to religion, mainline Protestants have a special challenge to create an alternative religious discourse, not only for their churches but also for the culture at large.
A pastor can do something as simple as leading the congregation in a study of anti-Judaism. One immensely interesting possibility would be a Lenten Bible study experience focusing on the Passion narratives, leading people through an exploration of how the Bible emerged in the life of the church. This study would offer a way of talking about the church’s witness to the gospel and how that witness can be made without any implicit or explicit anti-Jewish thought. It would also serve as a reflection on the liturgy of the church during Lent and Holy Week. People can be helped to understand how a certain strand of Christian witness has been intrinsically anti-Jewish (including some of the witness found in the Bible), and how damaging such a witness has been to the Jewish people. They can also learn to appreciate the need for the church to think theologically while taking into account the implications of the Holocaust. And finally, the church has a way to think critically about a contemporary movie on the death of Jesus—a film that at one level might seem completely harmless, but at a deeper level may well betray the fundamental beauty of the Christian witness.
Answer Churches, Journey Churches
Our culture will always have “answer” churches—those communities of faith that tend to see a well-defined Christianity. But for other churches, “journey” churches, theological exploration is essential because these churches thrive not by suggesting, “It doesn’t matter what you believe,” but by inviting people into the adventure of theological reflection and discovery, which in the end is a process of discovering what it means to be a human being in this world.
In my experience, people in churches are hungry for theological leadership, for the opportunity to grapple with everything from a news story about a controversial new Episcopal bishop to an eyebrow-raising contemporary movie about Jesus. Clergy leadership should be measured not merely by how well the church is administered or how many new members are received or how many pastoral calls are completed. All of that is important, but if there is such a thing as a “calling” (a profoundly religious concept), then clergy leaders should be about the business of creating religious community—one of theological exploration and discourse. Such communities rarely form by accident. They emerge when pastors are willing to lead theologically—leading because they passionately believe that it matters.
—————
NOTES
1. See Scott Colglazier, A Larger Hope: Opening the Heart to God (St. Louis: Chalice
Press, 2002).
2. Howard Stone and James Duke, How to Think Theologically (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).
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"How to Correct Someone who Works for You" by James Harnish
The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, warned one of his preachers about the dangers of his excessive vanity and unwillingness to study or pray. For 17 years. There is a lot that leaders can learn about working with difficult people from his example.
"How to Correct Someone who Works for You" by James Harnish
The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, warned one of his preachers about the dangers of his excessive vanity and unwillingness to study or pray. For 17 years. There is a lot that leaders can learn about working with difficult people from his example.
A Methodist preacher named John Trembath presented a persistent leadership challenge for John Wesley. He became a Methodist preacher in 1743 and traveled with Wesley to Ireland in 1747. In 1755, Wesley wrote a stern letter in which he reminded Trembath of a time when he was "simple of heart and willing to spend and be spent for Christ." But across the past 12 years, Trembath had "suffered loss by being applauded." Wesley said his "natural vanity" was "harder to be checked" because of his "constitutional stubbornness."
Some things never change. Vanity -- an excessive sense of self-importance, and stubbornness -- and the inability to receive or respond to insight or critique from others continue to be a potent combination for the kind of problems that contaminate healthy leadership. In Trembath's case, it resulted in behaviors that Wesley said were inappropriate for a Methodist preacher. In no uncertain terms, Wesley challenged Trembath to "recover the life of God in your own soul and walk as Christ walked." We can feel the urgency in Wesley's words: "You must be much in the way or much out of the way, a good soldier for God or for the devil. O choose the better part! -- now!-- to-day!"
Five years later, Wesley again wrote to Trembath, "You cannot stand still; you know this is impossible. You must go forward or backward. Either you must recover that power and be a Christian altogether, or in a while you will have neither power nor form, inside nor outside."
This time Wesley diagnosed Trembath's problem as a lack of reading ("I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little ... Hence your talent in preaching does not increase") and a lack of "meditation and daily prayer." He warns, "You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it any more than a thorough Christian."
Wesley's final challenge to Trembath is as true today as it was 250 years ago. "O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or not, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way: else you will be a trifler all your days . . . Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross, and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you."
I'm amazed by Wesley's patient persistence with John Trembath. The two letters cover 17 years in their relationship. Wesley never gave up on his co-worker. The letters demonstrate three ways in which Wesley invested himself attempting to improve Trembath's effectiveness.
First, Wesley was willing to tell the difficult truth. He named the specific ways in which Trembath was falling short of his expectations and listed the behaviors that were undermining his effectiveness. One of the most difficult challenges of leadership is naming the real issues that are undermining a co-worker’s effectiveness in a way that helps that person see their need for change.
Second, Wesley defined the practices that could help Trembath grow into the kind of leader Wesley believed he was capable of becoming. Critique of behavior can be destructive if it is not accompanied by clearly defined steps toward improvement.
Third, Wesley continued to inspire Trembath by reminding him of the power of the Spirit of God at work in his life. He did not settle for quick fixes that only touched the external behaviors that were impeding Trembath's ministry. He cared for his co-worker's soul. He went to the heart of Trembath's identity as a follower of Christ and challenged him to grow.
Sooner or later, every leader faces the kind of dilemma Wesley faced with Trembath. There are times when the only responsible decision is to end the relationship and release a coworker to find another place to serve. But Wesley demonstrated a patient persistence with Trembath that evidently resulted in Trembath being reclaimed for more effective ministry.
In 1782, Wesley wrote, "John Trembath is alive again."
Jim Harnish is senior pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida.
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"Leaders Must Live with Uncertainty" by Pete Gerend
"Leaders Must Live with Uncertainty" by Pete Gerend
Leading today isn't just about technical prowess. Leaders must develop a mindset that allows them to perceive what's going on in their environment, to understand the system as a whole and to build the relationships that will allow them to do what needs to be done.Today’s leaders have to cope with a changing world, according to “Leading in Context,” a study by Duke Corporate Education. That’s why they need to develop beliefs and mindsets that allow them to respond to shifting environments, says Duke CE’s managing director for North America.
Editor's note: This interview is part of a series on leadership development.
The global business environment is unpredictable, interdependent and complex -- even unstable. How does this context affect leadership?
To answer this question, researchers at Duke Corporate Education interviewed 38 chief executive officers in 12 industries across the globe about how the increasingly volatile environment affects their work. That research is the basis of the 2013 study, “Leading in Context.”(link is external)
Editor's note: This interview is part of a series on leadership development.
The global business environment is unpredictable, interdependent and complex -- even unstable. How does this context affect leadership?
To answer this question, researchers at Duke Corporate Education interviewed 38 chief executive officers in 12 industries across the globe about how the increasingly volatile environment affects their work. That research is the basis of the 2013 study, “Leading in Context.”(link is external)
What we noticed over the course of the last few years is that the context had changed for organizations, and therefore really radically for leaders,” said Pete Gerend, the regional managing director for North America at Duke Corporate Education (link is external).
The study’s conclusion: Leading today isn’t just about technical prowess. Leaders must develop a mindset that allows them to perceive what’s going on in their environment, to understand the system as a whole and to build the relationships that will allow them to execute technical solutions.
Gerend, who also is a visiting professor in Duke’s psychology and neuroscience department, spoke to Faith & Leadership about how the findings of the study have informed leadership development training at Duke Corporate Education -- and his own work as a leader. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: Coping with change and unpredictability is the major theme of this report. What does that mean for leaders?
The study’s conclusion: Leading today isn’t just about technical prowess. Leaders must develop a mindset that allows them to perceive what’s going on in their environment, to understand the system as a whole and to build the relationships that will allow them to execute technical solutions.
Gerend, who also is a visiting professor in Duke’s psychology and neuroscience department, spoke to Faith & Leadership about how the findings of the study have informed leadership development training at Duke Corporate Education -- and his own work as a leader. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: Coping with change and unpredictability is the major theme of this report. What does that mean for leaders?
Change has traditionally been very focused on leaders driving change in their businesses. The thing that’s new now is that it’s not about changing the organization -- though that still happens. But what’s new for leaders is that their context is changing.
It’s something that we grapple with with our clients, because people are very accustomed to saying, “Change is about us making change.” But the real change is the change that’s happening all around them.
Q: How can you lead well when you can’t feel confident about predicting the future?
There were a few things that we realized that people do in order to get comfortable and to be effective in an environment that’s rapidly changing.
So one is that they focus a lot on perceiving. How do you see what’s happening without judging? It’s too easy for leaders and organizations to come into new situations with their old mindsets and their old lenses and their old ways of seeing how things operate. They misinterpret signals or they don’t pay attention to signals.
Effective leaders in new environments start by paying attention to what’s going on. What are the variables in the system? What are the things that are happening in the culture? How do you see without judging, essentially, or how do you look without thinking?
For leaders, especially in Western companies -- people who are driven to act -- that’s a really, really hard thing to do. But it’s something that we believe is required for leaders to be effective.
Q: Another point in this report is that leaders need to look at systems and to lead through influence. How does that differ from the old leadership image of the brilliant, dynamic individual?
It’s not necessarily about command and control and about having the authority, really. Authority isn’t derived from necessarily positions of formal power in organizations; authority is often now based on proximity to knowledge and insight about what’s happening in a particular environment.
And so leaders need to make sense of what’s happening by developing new, credible sources of knowledge.
I was interviewing a CEO from a mining and minerals company, and he was telling a story about doing some work in South America. This was 15 years ago or so. They had this huge technical challenge that they were trying to solve -- how do we get at this site, and how do we extract material? They had pretty much carte blanche from the government. And so the technical challenge was huge, but because they had control, they could just make it happen.
And he talked about a recent example in Turkey, where they had a technical challenge that was maybe an order of magnitude greater than the technical challenge in South America. But more importantly, they had many new stakeholders they had to account for.
The government in Turkey was very interested in making sure that they were not just extracting and leaving but that they were doing something sustainable. It was at the border of three different tribal areas, and so each of the tribal folks had an interest and an ability to influence the outcome.
The complexity of the relationships exacerbated the technical challenge. And it took them a while to figure out that the leader needed in that situation wasn’t the most brilliant technical leader, which is what they relied on in the past. They needed someone who was technically competent but also who was politically savvy and who was open and creative and willing to draw on different sources of knowledge and information.
Q: How is technical knowledge different from systemic and tacit knowledge?
Technical knowledge is something that we’re all accustomed to being trained in. We find that many organizations around the world have emphasized proficiency and technical knowledge. Leaders rise through the ranks often based on their technical competence.
Do they know how to solve the problem? Do they know how to do the work? And that’s great, and it’s necessary.
The challenge now is that there’s more interdependency. There are more linkages between political groups and organizations, and as a result of that, it’s important for leaders to see the entire system in which they operate.
Leaders need to see the system, and then they need to be able to identify the points of leverage in the system. It’s not OK anymore just to try to solve the problem directly.
That often means that you have to extend the reach in terms of the number of stakeholders you involve, the number of experts, the different perspectives that you gather, and you have to be willing to make trade-offs, short-term and long-term trade-offs. How do we optimize for the whole as opposed to any one of the parts?
Tacit knowledge is really about the things that we do without recognizing that we do them. It’s about interpersonal interactions; it’s about cultural awareness. What are those little, weak signals that can make a big difference and influence the system?
Q: How does this new context affect the work that you do? How do you teach this?
We help leaders know what they need to know, help them have the skills to be able to do what they need to do, and help them develop the mindset and beliefs to be able to see the world in the right way in order to be effective.
If you think about the balance of those three things -- knowing, doing and believing -- in the past, leadership development has been very tilted toward knowing and doing.
Now, there’s a real emphasis in this context on believing. Believing that there are things that you don’t know that you need to learn, believing that you don’t have the authority.
And so some of what we do is put people in situations. You get people out of the classroom; you put them in a situation where they have to grapple with this kind of change, where they have to understand at a personal level how they deal with new situations.
One of the changes for us is that this is something that is very, very personal. You will deal with new environments in ways that are very different from how I deal with new environments. Helping people understand that, then giving them the skills and knowledge to build on their own personal approach, is critically important.
Q: To what degree do you bring out people’s own gifts in leadership?
I’ll tell you another story. We are testing a new approach that is a very immersive experience. We were piloting that experience in San Diego this summer, and I got to be a participant. We created a fictitious environment and put people in this environment for multiple days. They have a challenge they have to solve, and it is very realistic and very unsettling.
Within the first several hours of being in this immersive experience and trying to navigate through and make sense of what was happening, I had gathered two people with me so that we formed a team.
I had a coach who was working with me, observing me throughout the process, and she asked me, “In uncertain situations, do you tend to form teams?” And that’s something I hadn’t thought about before this.
When I reflected on it, I went back and found three or four other examples where I was very uncomfortable and things were very uncertain, and that’s exactly what I did. I gathered some people together to help me navigate.
So it’s about understanding how you work, how you deal with uncertainty, and then helping you either build on what you do well or change the things that could be potential vulnerabilities.
Ultimately, what we’re trying to develop is a personal process for consistently dealing with and navigating through uncertainty. We’ve seen in organization after organization, time and time again, that that’s something that once you have it, you don’t lose it; you can practice it. And so it will help leaders be more effective.
This is about how do you develop a personal process for dealing with uncertainty.
Q: So what were you doing, if you don’t mind my asking?
We created a country called Baruzia. You’re representing a company, and so you have to understand what’s happening in terms of the dynamics, which are unique, and make relationships with people who are influential. Then you develop a case for being a valued partner to the government.
It’s amazing. It’s a very immersive, full experience. And all the actors are in character the whole time. They are going about their daily routines; they are the people they’re supposed to be.
So the ministers are ministering, and the religious leaders are dealing with the people, and the shopkeepers are tending their shops and selling their goods, and the farmers are farming.
And part of what I realized is that not only as a leader is it important to see the system, but the other thing that is just as important is that you have to know how and where to influence the system.
So where do you engage? And so that insight -- see the system and influence the system, those two very different skill sets -- are things that I’ve applied in my own work.
I lead an organization of about 70 people in North America, and so I think a lot about the work that we’re doing. It’s a system that involves the 70 people, plus a few hundred external partners, plus our clients.
So how do I see the system? And where are the opportunities that I have, given my standing, to actually make change? It’s not always the thing that you would think it would be.
Sometimes it’s influencing the person who can have a big impact, as opposed to pushing though my own ideas about what the right thing to do is.
It also became very clear to me in Baruzia that this is about relationships. I have to ask myself the question, “Do I have the right level of relationship with the right people?”
Q: Why are beliefs or mindsets important for leaders?
This notion that we talk about -- mindsets -- is how important it is to start with openness. Openness means seeing without judging, but it also means humility.
If you’re humble, then you’re not only open but you’re willing to engage and bring others along and to be influenced in ways that in the long run can have positive implications on your ability to impact and influence.
We see more and more in organizations that humility is an important starting point for leaders. And I think that’s true not just in business; I think it’s true in our communities, too.
It’s something that we grapple with with our clients, because people are very accustomed to saying, “Change is about us making change.” But the real change is the change that’s happening all around them.
Q: How can you lead well when you can’t feel confident about predicting the future?
There were a few things that we realized that people do in order to get comfortable and to be effective in an environment that’s rapidly changing.
So one is that they focus a lot on perceiving. How do you see what’s happening without judging? It’s too easy for leaders and organizations to come into new situations with their old mindsets and their old lenses and their old ways of seeing how things operate. They misinterpret signals or they don’t pay attention to signals.
Effective leaders in new environments start by paying attention to what’s going on. What are the variables in the system? What are the things that are happening in the culture? How do you see without judging, essentially, or how do you look without thinking?
For leaders, especially in Western companies -- people who are driven to act -- that’s a really, really hard thing to do. But it’s something that we believe is required for leaders to be effective.
Q: Another point in this report is that leaders need to look at systems and to lead through influence. How does that differ from the old leadership image of the brilliant, dynamic individual?
It’s not necessarily about command and control and about having the authority, really. Authority isn’t derived from necessarily positions of formal power in organizations; authority is often now based on proximity to knowledge and insight about what’s happening in a particular environment.
And so leaders need to make sense of what’s happening by developing new, credible sources of knowledge.
I was interviewing a CEO from a mining and minerals company, and he was telling a story about doing some work in South America. This was 15 years ago or so. They had this huge technical challenge that they were trying to solve -- how do we get at this site, and how do we extract material? They had pretty much carte blanche from the government. And so the technical challenge was huge, but because they had control, they could just make it happen.
And he talked about a recent example in Turkey, where they had a technical challenge that was maybe an order of magnitude greater than the technical challenge in South America. But more importantly, they had many new stakeholders they had to account for.
The government in Turkey was very interested in making sure that they were not just extracting and leaving but that they were doing something sustainable. It was at the border of three different tribal areas, and so each of the tribal folks had an interest and an ability to influence the outcome.
The complexity of the relationships exacerbated the technical challenge. And it took them a while to figure out that the leader needed in that situation wasn’t the most brilliant technical leader, which is what they relied on in the past. They needed someone who was technically competent but also who was politically savvy and who was open and creative and willing to draw on different sources of knowledge and information.
Q: How is technical knowledge different from systemic and tacit knowledge?
Technical knowledge is something that we’re all accustomed to being trained in. We find that many organizations around the world have emphasized proficiency and technical knowledge. Leaders rise through the ranks often based on their technical competence.
Do they know how to solve the problem? Do they know how to do the work? And that’s great, and it’s necessary.
The challenge now is that there’s more interdependency. There are more linkages between political groups and organizations, and as a result of that, it’s important for leaders to see the entire system in which they operate.
Leaders need to see the system, and then they need to be able to identify the points of leverage in the system. It’s not OK anymore just to try to solve the problem directly.
That often means that you have to extend the reach in terms of the number of stakeholders you involve, the number of experts, the different perspectives that you gather, and you have to be willing to make trade-offs, short-term and long-term trade-offs. How do we optimize for the whole as opposed to any one of the parts?
Tacit knowledge is really about the things that we do without recognizing that we do them. It’s about interpersonal interactions; it’s about cultural awareness. What are those little, weak signals that can make a big difference and influence the system?
Q: How does this new context affect the work that you do? How do you teach this?
We help leaders know what they need to know, help them have the skills to be able to do what they need to do, and help them develop the mindset and beliefs to be able to see the world in the right way in order to be effective.
If you think about the balance of those three things -- knowing, doing and believing -- in the past, leadership development has been very tilted toward knowing and doing.
Now, there’s a real emphasis in this context on believing. Believing that there are things that you don’t know that you need to learn, believing that you don’t have the authority.
And so some of what we do is put people in situations. You get people out of the classroom; you put them in a situation where they have to grapple with this kind of change, where they have to understand at a personal level how they deal with new situations.
One of the changes for us is that this is something that is very, very personal. You will deal with new environments in ways that are very different from how I deal with new environments. Helping people understand that, then giving them the skills and knowledge to build on their own personal approach, is critically important.
Q: To what degree do you bring out people’s own gifts in leadership?
I’ll tell you another story. We are testing a new approach that is a very immersive experience. We were piloting that experience in San Diego this summer, and I got to be a participant. We created a fictitious environment and put people in this environment for multiple days. They have a challenge they have to solve, and it is very realistic and very unsettling.
Within the first several hours of being in this immersive experience and trying to navigate through and make sense of what was happening, I had gathered two people with me so that we formed a team.
I had a coach who was working with me, observing me throughout the process, and she asked me, “In uncertain situations, do you tend to form teams?” And that’s something I hadn’t thought about before this.
When I reflected on it, I went back and found three or four other examples where I was very uncomfortable and things were very uncertain, and that’s exactly what I did. I gathered some people together to help me navigate.
So it’s about understanding how you work, how you deal with uncertainty, and then helping you either build on what you do well or change the things that could be potential vulnerabilities.
Ultimately, what we’re trying to develop is a personal process for consistently dealing with and navigating through uncertainty. We’ve seen in organization after organization, time and time again, that that’s something that once you have it, you don’t lose it; you can practice it. And so it will help leaders be more effective.
This is about how do you develop a personal process for dealing with uncertainty.
Q: So what were you doing, if you don’t mind my asking?
We created a country called Baruzia. You’re representing a company, and so you have to understand what’s happening in terms of the dynamics, which are unique, and make relationships with people who are influential. Then you develop a case for being a valued partner to the government.
It’s amazing. It’s a very immersive, full experience. And all the actors are in character the whole time. They are going about their daily routines; they are the people they’re supposed to be.
So the ministers are ministering, and the religious leaders are dealing with the people, and the shopkeepers are tending their shops and selling their goods, and the farmers are farming.
And part of what I realized is that not only as a leader is it important to see the system, but the other thing that is just as important is that you have to know how and where to influence the system.
So where do you engage? And so that insight -- see the system and influence the system, those two very different skill sets -- are things that I’ve applied in my own work.
I lead an organization of about 70 people in North America, and so I think a lot about the work that we’re doing. It’s a system that involves the 70 people, plus a few hundred external partners, plus our clients.
So how do I see the system? And where are the opportunities that I have, given my standing, to actually make change? It’s not always the thing that you would think it would be.
Sometimes it’s influencing the person who can have a big impact, as opposed to pushing though my own ideas about what the right thing to do is.
It also became very clear to me in Baruzia that this is about relationships. I have to ask myself the question, “Do I have the right level of relationship with the right people?”
Q: Why are beliefs or mindsets important for leaders?
This notion that we talk about -- mindsets -- is how important it is to start with openness. Openness means seeing without judging, but it also means humility.
If you’re humble, then you’re not only open but you’re willing to engage and bring others along and to be influenced in ways that in the long run can have positive implications on your ability to impact and influence.
We see more and more in organizations that humility is an important starting point for leaders. And I think that’s true not just in business; I think it’s true in our communities, too.
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