I have creatively titled this blog more paradoxes. So in case you are unsure what this blog is about, it is about more paradoxes because last week I published on this blog a list of 5 paradoxes.
Here are a few more.
- Leaders must be ahead of their followers but also understand their struggles.
If I look to you as a leader, especially a spiritual leader, I expect you to be ahead of me. I expect you have been down the road of spiritual growth and that you can lead me somewhere you have been. If you are a leader you cannot lead people down a path you have never been. I don't think you have to necessarily be miles and miles down the road, but you need to at least be a little further ahead. This gives leaders authority.
I see myself as a spiritual leader (which sounds somewhat arrogant for some reason and yet I work at a church and I believe Jesus wants all his followers to be spiritual leaders, not just the professionals). My job is to bring people along a spiritual path, which means I need to continue to grow and allow God to change me. To lead others, I must enter new experiences that aren't comfortable but open me to God's grace. On the other hand, I am no good as a leader if I don't understand the struggles people are having with God and growing in faith. If I don't know where people are, how can I direct them to where they need to go? Besides, people don't connect with leaders who aren't human. If a leader never shares his struggles, then people come to believe that spiritual growth is something way high and above them, something they can never achieve.
So leaders need to on one hand communicate and show how they have moved down a road of growth and yet communicate their own struggles; they need to acknowledge that growth can be difficult.
- Leaders must understand principles of life, yet know they navigate the unknown.
Life is full of principles that work on us all the time, like gravity. There is reality and a way life works. Leaders need wisdom to know how life works. Leaders who lack wisdom and knowledge of how life works will make unnecessary and dumb mistakes and may lead their organization to destruction. So good leaders need to know how life works and yield to the principles of life. However, the job of leadership is to set direction and clarity in the midst of uncertainty. If everyone knew what to do, leaders wouldn't be necessary. The best of leaders move into the unknown while it is still unknown. I read recently that Colin Powell said that he could make decisions with 30 percent of the information and any more than 80 percent was too much.
- Life is full of predictable principles and mystery.
Looking on this one, this is similar to above. I also apply it to a relationship with God. God has revealed himself and let us know certain truths about himself and yet he is mystery, we will never come to the end of God, but constantly learning more about him.
- Leaders must preserve the core and stimulate progress
This concept is taken from Jim Collins. A leader's job is to preserve the core values, principles and the core business in an organization. There needs to be some conservatism in every organization otherwise organizations lose their identity. So often organizations don't know who they are and so they stray from their core business. We see this in the Church. The Church has forgotten that its core business is not running schools or hospitals or even providing charitable outreach to the poor. The Church's core business is producing and making followers of Jesus Christ. The loss of this mission has been deadly for the Church and our culture. Without leaders, organizations will go after everything and anything. As the saying goes, "You have to stand for something or you are going to fall for anything." This happens with individuals and organizations.
However, leaders must also stimulate progress and growth otherwise an organization will stagnate. The key of progress is that it flows from an organization's identity – its core values and core business. Apple is an excellent example of this. Apple started as a computer company with a vision of bringing the personal computer into more and more homes so more and more people could be creative and express themselves. As Apple as moved into the cell phone business and music business, they have kept that core identity as part of what they do. They have kept their integrity with who they are. Leaders make sure that progress and new initiatives are consistent with the identity of an organization.
- In order to have peace, we must be willing to fight and enter conflict.
Recently, I took a personality test that revealed my core motive is peace. Essentially, I like to just be left alone. So this is a difficult lesson for me to learn. I don't like to fight and can't stand conflict. However, peace must be fought for once in a while. Peace doesn't naturally occur in our fallen world. One day the lion will lie down with the lamb and peace will be the natural order, but that's not where we are in the story. People do wrong sometimes willfully and sometimes ignorantly. If we want true peace at times we will have to confront others and enter into conflict. This is why Jesus said, "I didn't come to bring peace but the sword." He knew that confronting people with the truth wouldn't bring peace in the short term, but in the end peace that is fought for is the only peace worth having.
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