I met with our leadership team last evening. For several weeks I've struggled with a potential shift in direction. In my prayer life I have experienced God's leading, His gentle nudging of my soul as I've watched Him work in our small church. How should I respond? What direction should I go?
Normally my leadership style is that once I believe I know where God is leading me, I take the goals and plans to our leadership team for their confirmation. I try to do as much of the work in advance as I can, thinking through problems and coming up with solutions. However this time I not only felt God's urging to consider the opportunity, I also experienced His check to trust my leadership team to help me through the planning stage.
So I wrote down as much of my thinking as I could along with different alternatives and emailed the whole package out ahead of time to my leadership team. I asked them to read and pray about what I wrote. I asked them to come to the meeting with input and suggestions. They responded beautifully last night. We don't have everything figured out. Next month we'll talk some more. But I have direction for what I need to do now and for the next few months. Because of this, I start my day today with confidence and energy.
Leading a leadership team requires a certain balance that does not come to me automatically. Like a teeter totter it would be easy for the team to become grounded on one extreme or the other. One one hand I could come up with everything myself and expect nothing more than the rubber stamp of approval. My team would not really be leading, but confirming my direction. Our church would be weaker because the leaders really wouldn't be developing their own leadership skills.
On the other hand I could defer all leadership responsibilities to the leadership team and wait for them to give me direction. Leadership by committee has rarely worked well in my experience. The teeter totter becomes grounded in the other extreme of the pastor simply managing through the assignments of the leadership team.
Finding the balance between these two extremes is a challenge. Knowing when to push for a particular direction with full throttle but also knowing when to wait with listening ears: this is the constant balancing of the godly leader. How do we find and maintain such a balance? Only one word adequately describes the necessary characteristic: humility.
The moment I write that I am humble, of course, I risk losing all humility. Humility though is not about making myself less. Humility is more about recognizing my proper place in God's universe. I (humbly) recognize that I am a leader called by God to lead His church. I know this is my gift from Him and I am to use this gift for the benefit of His church. Humility also requires me to admit when I don't know the next step, when I don't have all the answers, when I need to listen to the advice of the godly men and women God has also so graciously given to me.
The Proverbs writer put it so succinctly: "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom" (Proverbs 11:2). Sadly the words "disgrace" and "pastor" are too often used in the same sentence in our world today. Those who consider their primary strength to be leadership need to work extra hard on finding the balance of humilty. The natural thing for leaders is to trust too much in their own leadership.
What about you? What are you learning about this balance of leadership? How do you know when to push forward and when to hold back? How does humility work in your every day leadership duties? Share you comments below. Let us (humbly) chat together!
