Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Fear Reality, not your Leader

How scared is my church? And what are they scared of?

Occasionally, I see someone acting scared of a church leader. Not because that church leader is an ogre. And not because of some deep and nasty sin in the person's life. I just mean scared because the person made some little mistake or hasn't got around to fixing 'that thing', and they know their church leader is pretty quick with feedback and has a fair bit of clout.

I recently read, Good to Great, by Jim Collins. It's brilliant. Essential leadership reading, I reckon.

This sentence stuck out to me more than any other in the whole book:
"The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse." Jim Collins, Good to Great, 72.
Collins reckons that strong leaders need to face the brutal facts of reality themselves. More: they need their team to do the same.

But there's an obstacle: the very strength of that leader's personality can be the 'reality' that his/her team fears above all. So, Collins urges strong-personality-type leaders to come up with ways to make sure your team doesn't just tell you what you want to hear, out of fear of you.