Learning and Leading in Ministry: Chapter Twelve

Leadership Basic Tasks: Teaching, Coaching, Training

Learn how to help.

Authentic leadership comes from actually helping people. A true leader does not accept his or her position as a resume enhancement or the surest path to a golden parachute. Leaders worth their salt actively engage their followers in real, life-changing, difference-making relationships. Three basic leadership tasks give rise to meaningful relationships between leaders and followers: teaching, coaching and training. They may all look the same, but big differences exist among them.

Teaching: Non-academic teaching operates in a different context than the school environment. In the real world, teachers do not enjoy a master-to-scholar positional leverage. Instead, they must actually impart knowledge or skills that followers either lack or do not know how to use. In church work, members who have been around for a long time may know as much theology or tradition as the new pastor, but the pastor may have better skills in communication, organization or methodology. Effective teaching in the mature world only occurs when the learner is convinced that the teacher actually knows what he or she is teaching. The lazy, unfocused teacher who presumes on positional authority to get the job done will fail.

Coaching: All coaching involves teaching, but the main job for coaches is to motivate their followers. Coaches have to get closer to the human side of those with whom they work in order to effectively guide them to the highest levels of capability. Coaches see errors in performance and work to correct them. Coaches see lapses in effort and inspire their workers or players to generate more intensity. Coaches get a feel for bad attitudes and target them for change. These observations require empathy, sensitivity and understanding. They also demand an inner strength that dominates the workers or players natural resistance to conform. Coaching is probably the most rewarding and enjoyable aspect of leadership.

Training:  Leaders who dedicate themselves to training stand to gain the most mileage from their leadership efforts. It takes a huge amount of dedication, because few proactive tasks of leadership demand more work, cause more grief or catch more flak than training. The trainer hears all the bitter complaints. The trainer gets up early, puts in long hours and goes to bed exhausted. The trainer makes people do what they don’t want to do and talks them into painful exercises and deprives followers of fun because he or she understands the exponential gains that rigorous training eventually yields. Tough, mean and unsympathetic, the trainer takes away the pleasure of the moment in exchange for the joy of a lifetime.

Without these elements, leadership ceases to work. But, when leaders learn how to teach, coach and train, they end up helping people live better lives.

Learning and Leading in Ministry: Chapter Eleven

Just Stop It.

Learn self-control.

Takeru Kobayashi of Nagano , Japan has been crowned the world’s greatest competitive eater. According to the website of the Nationwide Speaker’s Bureau, Inc., Kobayashi dominated the sport of competitive eating in 2004. At a Coney Island event, he ate 53.5 hot dogs and buns in twelve minutes and sixty-nine Krystal hamburgers in eight minutes! His performance reportedly sent shock waves through the competitive eating community. The Japanese native has been named the greatest competitive eater in International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) history and some observers even consider him to be the finest athlete of our time. With dozens of records worldwide, he is undefeated in IFOCE competition. I suspect that Kobayashi, along with his fellow IFOCE athletes, never learned how to stop.

Learning when to stop—usually the mantra of those against driving drunk, overeaters or workaholics—applies to leaders too. When you achieve an important victory and find yourself swimming in congratulations, you have to put yourself on alert: has success changed your inner person? Are you still lean and hungry? Are you okay with simply edging ahead of the competition or do you feel a compulsion to totally obliterate it?

The moment of victory may double as the moment of greatest peril. Overconfidence in your success will create enemies. How does this happen? Here’s how: despite all insistence to the contrary, success causes a definite change to anyone who achieves it. First, you accomplished something that you never did before. Second, success removes tension and doubt incited by prior failures. Third, winning automatically makes you superior to your competitors. Overnight, all winners find themselves saddled by these new unfamiliar and even uncomfortable facts. You are no longer a “regular Joe.” You may think you are, you may want to be, you may try to continue to act like one, but it’s no use. People perceive winners differently than losers. There’s nothing you can do about their perception, but you can keep from believing it. To allow your success to change your basic view of yourself smacks of insufferable arrogance. Once you go there, it’s over.

Much like winning, losing also creates attitudes that negatively affect leadership. Losers become tentative, hesitant and fearful. Losers find it more and more difficult to believe that good things can happen. Losers develop sarcastic demeanors that deny faith, ridicule believers and impugn the successes of others. Losers shun winners. Losers convince themselves that life is unfair, that no good deed goes unpunished and that luck determines all outcomes. Losers suspect that winners got a leg up by an insider, that playing by the rules never works and that they have no chance to win against insurmountable odds. These are not collections of facts, but attitudes. No one wins until he or she loses the losing attitude.

Just stop it. I know it’s easy for me to say. You ask, “How?” That’s your worksheet. Attack it with a passion. No one can give you your personal formula for success, but you can identify the negative factors that must be eliminated in order to get there. How to stop wrong attitudes looms before you as your number one objective in your success strategy. I just know you have to do it.

Learning and Leading in Ministry: Chapter Ten

Get Help.

Learn humility.

So, you’ve made a mess of things. You overspent, underachieved, overcharged, under funded and you’re overwhelmed. You miscalculated, mishandled, mistook and misread. You started when you should have stopped and stopped when you should have started. Cold, clammy fingers tighten around your throat and nausea roils your stomach. You have no clue what to do. If this gets out, you’re toast. Now, you sit with your head in your hands or pace around the room looking mindlessly at the same pictures on the wall, racking your brain for a solution. Exercise great caution here! The same thinking that got you into your mess may also keep you from getting out of it. It is time to do what you hate to do the most: ask for help.

Typical of this sentiment is NBC’s Tim Russert’s dad, affectionately known as “Big Russ.” In an interview for a series to address caring for elderly parents, this exchange occurred between the son and father.

Tim Russert: You got a great team.
(Narration) Now, at 83, Dad has slowed down. Still, he won’t ask for help and won’t consider a retirement home.
Russert: When I tried to talk to you about going to the assisted living place, you wouldn’t get out of the car.
Big Russ: Nah, nah, don’t get them going. They’ll be calling me up.

Maybe, for a proud man who is struggling fiercely to maintain his independence in his waning years, refusing to ask for help seems wryly amusing. For a leader whose bad choices and ignorance of circumstances have led to disaster, however, nobody’s laughing. Unfortunately, it is an error that crops up far too often.

“Well, one of the problems (among many others) was this: People rarely ask questions. We rarely ask others for help–sometimes because we don’t know there’s a better way (how would I have known I was cutting the onion wrongly?)–and sometimes for other reasons like preserving our ego. I’m not the only one to point this out: A survey asked corporate employees what the #1 networking mistake was. Guess what it was? Not asking for help!” (Ramit Sethi, www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com).

Never despise asking for help. Nearly every failed leader I’ve met has admitted that he or she should have called for help as the critical point of the crisis approached. Pride and stubbornness, however, sabotaged their better judgment. This next statement may seem brutal, but they chose to betray their followers’ futures rather than show their personal weakness. Ultimately, not calling for help is an ego thing.

Your solution may be one call away. Pick up the phone. Do it now. The longer you stubbornly cling to a losing strategy, the more invested into defeat you will become. Sacrifice your pride in order to save your people. Help is out there if you will go get it.

Learning and Leading in Ministry: Chapter Nine

Icantdecide.

Learn decision-making.

Homicide. Suicide. Patricide. Matricide. Icantdecide. This last crime falls into the same category, more or less: the inability or refusal to make a decision. A leader plays many roles, but only the role of decision-maker makes him the leader. You can’t just not decide. When a leader abdicates this responsibility and commits icantdecide, somebody’s going to die, figuratively if not literally. A good leader establishes criteria for decisions, assesses his options, acts boldly and endures the aftermath. Those who can’t do this need to get out of the way and let someone else lead.

With all the hoopla in recent decades about the freedom of choice, one would think that people are champing at the proverbial bit to choose what they are going to do in life. Not really. Many people rush to the brink of choice, peer over the precipice, turn pale and back off into indecision. Actually, the easiest decision is deciding not to decide. That’s why it’s such a popular choice. “I can’t decide because I don’t know if I’m making the best decision. I’m afraid to make the wrong decision. I may hurt myself in a hundred ways if I make a bad decision. What if other people don’t like my decision? What if it costs me too much? What if it doesn’t work out the way I want it to? What if I lose my support after I make this decision? What if I find out that it is the stupidest thing I have ever done?”

Some exercise the delay default. “Sleep on it. Make the decision the first of next week…or next month…or next year. Wait until after Christmas…or New Year…or winter…or summer. Let’s see what happens. Let’s see what Grandpa thinks about it. Let’s wait until the first quarter’s numbers are in…or the second. Let’s see how I feel in the morning. Let’s wait until I get back from my vacation.” Delay may indeed be the best strategy before making a critical decision, but it often turns into a slow way of committing icantdecide. Of course, you should always wait for all the crucial factors to come in before making a decision. After those factors become available, though, further delay indicates irresponsible leadership.

Someone had to make the major decisions that shaped the history of man. For example, how was the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima made? In a little publicized historical twist, President Truman did not fully understand the facts. Earlier, he had made it clear to his generals that only military targets were acceptable for the A-bomb. When he received news that Hiroshima had been bombed, he made this statement:

“The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost. I urge Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities immediately, and save themselves from destruction.”

One wonders that if the President had known Hiroshima was not a military base but a city with 300,000 civilian inhabitants, would he have approved of the bombing? The answer, it seems, is no. (Leo Szilard, USN&WR, August 15, 1960.) Yet, some argue that, as gruesome as the bombing may have been, many thousands of lives were saved in the long run because it brought an end to our war with Japan . Regardless of the opinions, the decision-making task fell to the leader.

Every leader must learn decision-making. If you don’t know how to decide, learn how. If you need help, an abundance of material exists that thoroughly analyzes and elaborates on the process. You have many resources at your fingertips. If you don’t know what to look for, find out. No other aspect of leadership trumps the act of decision-making.

Learning and Leading in Ministry: Chapter Eight

Twenty-Four to Two

Learn delegation.

Jesus had two hands. His twelve disciples had twenty-four. Do the math. In terms of sheer human effort, simple calculations reveal that Jesus accomplished twelve times as much by working through his disciples than if he were to have done everything all himself. While He proved his deity by his miracles, sign and wonders, he proved his leadership by sharing his purpose as the incarnate God with twelve selected individuals. By putting his organizational skills to work, Jesus confirmed the value of fundamental leadership principles like delegation, training and teamwork. He recruited disciples, not to create an entourage so as to impress observers of his importance, but to actually carry out his work in the world. Thus, every effective leader must determine that he will not do the work himself, even though he could do it better than his followers.

Every time a leader rolls up his sleeves, pushes underlings aside and plunges into the work himself, he make two colossal blunders: First, he does what he should and could train others to do. Second, he abandons his own job that no one else can do. It makes no sense for a boss to undertake menial tasks himself while his employees lean on their shovels and watch him do the work they were hired to do. Yet, in church circles, many pastors insist on being the carpenter, the painter, the interior decorator and the computer geek. They need to understand that other people can probably do it better than he can and would literally love to have the chance.

Moreover, a general can do a soldier’s work, but a soldier cannot do the general’s work. In the end, the general’s job is far more critical to the success of the total campaign. The leader who relinquishes control over the jobs gives a gargantuan leap forward to his potential productivity and the quality of his output.  Through shared responsibility, a church congregation can grow to a much greater size that it may presently be.

Delegation requires trust. Leaders who do not put implicit trust their followers to do a good job are doomed to operate at low levels. Their future will always look bleak. “If I only had the right people,” they complain. The hang-up is not with the lack of personnel, however, but with the person in charge. Those who have more faith in their own two hands than they do in the multiple hands of their followers will only glean whatever measure of harvest that two hands can reap.