Leadership Confessions

What Old Tomorrow Can Teach us Today about the Lost Art of Consensus Building

This week I spent an afternoon with a wise friend discussing, amongst other things, leadership styles and principles.  One aspect of our conversation centred around what skill set leaders need in today's cultural climate.  Obviously there's a multiplicity of answers but a few tend to dominate the contemporary conversation: public presence, communication abilities, and the ability to get things done.  

But these have not always been the dominate leadership traits, and perhaps looking to the past might provide some insight on a foudnational skill set for leaders today who work in fractured or volutneer-driven environments: the lost art of consensus building.  

Take, for example, Sir John A. Macdonald.  In 1885, he was bound and determined to see one of his projects, the Canadian Pacific Railway, move forward.  There was only one problem - no one supported him in this dream.  Not his finance minister, not his caucus, not the opposition.  And to make matters worse, CPR president George Stephen came knocking on Ottawa's door again asking for a government bail-out as the incomplete railway teetered towards bankruptcy.  Listen as author Christopher Moore describes the skill set brilliantly executed as the CPR story unfolds:

 

Macdonald knew the stakes. “The day the CPR busts, the government busts the day after,” one of his advisers put it succinctly. The money had to be found. If 1885 were 2012, that would have ended the crisis. Macdonald was the dominating political figure of his day and his re-elected government held a big majority. If Macdonald favoured the bailout, surely all he had to do was put the cheque in the mail. Isn’t that what a stable national majority government leader does?

 Instead, for another six months, Old Tomorrow kept Stephen waiting while the railroad lurched toward bankruptcy. The problem was Macdonald’s caucus and cabinet had deserted him. They could not stomach throwing more money at the railroad. Cabinet colleagues said letting the company fail was better politics than saving it. Backbenchers from the Maritimes and Quebec demanded something in exchange: help for their own pet railroads. His own finance minister, Leonard Tilley, thought the government could scoop up the assets of the bankrupt CPR and finish the job itself. In short, Macdonald led a majority government but lacked the parliamentary votes for a bailout.

Macdonald did not discipline his dissident ministers of 1885. The colossus of Canadian politics did not drive skeptical backbenchers out of politics as a modern leader would. Macdonald lived by the rules of 19th-century Canadian Parliaments: a leader answered to caucus, not the other way round. If a prime minister could not assemble a majority of his own MPs behind him on an issue, he accommodated.

That ability to accommodate certainly contributed to his reputation as Canada’s “nation maker,” as Richard Gwyn brilliantly portrayed him. But perhaps Macdonald’s greatest skill was as a majority maker. In a recent Historica-Dominion Institute project to promote the celebration of “John A. Day,” we suggested that what kept Macdonald at the top during his extraordinary career was rarely the authority of single-minded vision. More often, it was his uncanny ability to pull together majorities in the House when none seemed to exist." (Maclenas, Jan 23, 2012, page 25)

For those in church leadership, this situation will ring all too familiar.  There are boards, councils, deacons and various other volunteer groups to work with and under and for.  There are staff members sometimes with competing visions or strategies who need to be brought towards alignment.  Most contemporary leaders will default to using their positional authority to "get things done".  But not Old Tomorrow (John A's nickname).  He was patient and worked tirelessly at building consensus and helping people move towards alignment and vision through relationships and not coercion.  

And his railway project?  Well, the CPR was left unsure of it's fate until that May.  "Then came the Metis resistance on the South Saskatchewan, and it was the unfinished railroad that rushed troops to the West. Suddenly the CPR could do no wrong. Caucus came around, and the votes were there. The last spike was driven six months later. John A. Macdonald looked like a genius. Again." (ibid).  

What leadership challenge are you facing?  Perhaps rushing towards action instead of taking time to build a strong consensus may win you this battle, but you might loose the war.  Seems like Old Tomorrow just may have a powerful lesson for us still today.  

Leadership Lessons from the Climbing Gym

This past month, my brother and brother-in-law took me climbing.  They are both avid climbers and so I knew I was in well over my head.  While they worked on technique in a bouldering cave (if you're a climber apparently you know to warm up here -  I needed to be told), I watched and tried to pick up as much as I could.  I knew I was in trouble when they guy asked me if I knew how to belay and I asked for a refresher course and he looked at me as if I was from another planet.  He rolled his eyes almost politely and said in his best non-defensive tone "you either know how to do it or you don't... do you know how to belay?".  I wisely didn't try to fake my way through that one and so I was allowed only to climb for the evening (smart move on my part, right?)

There's a ton of great leadership analogies from a climbing gym and you don't have to dig too deep to find them. Let me test a few with you:

1. Know your skill level and don't try to talk your way past it - Us guys especially are full of false bravado.  We like to talk like we're experts in fields that we know nothing about.  Sometimes we can do this verbally but when we begin to do in in our leadership, we potentially damage not only our credibility as a leader but we also open our organization up to taking on challenges it can not handle.  I've been in a few too many situations where I've promised things on behalf of those around me that we were not able to deliver - and it was a painful fall.  The general rule of leadership should be under-promise and over-deliver.  
2. Take a rest when you need it - I watched some amazing climbs that night.  One guy even went up vertical onto the roof and went feet first onto an amazingly difficult course!  One thing I noted was that he stopped for about 10 minutes at the top of the wall before he went vertical and surveyed the terrain ahead.  His mind was mapping a route and his arms and feet were actually moving as he pictured himself out of the ledge.  But lead climbing is tiring work and so he also took this break to rest his body and his mind for what was coming up (sounds like a good sabbatical, doesn't it?)
3. Ask for help when you need it - At one point, I was up on the wall for my last climb of the night.  I was very tired as we had been climbing for almost 3 hours and my little runners body isn't used to using some of those muscle groups!  I was about 5/8th up the wall and seemed stuck on a particularly difficult combination.  I rested and came off the wall to look at it but nothing was coming to me and I was getting frustrated.  Suddenly from below, I became aware of the guys shouting not only encouragement but also specific advice to me.  They could see things I couldn't see - that I had my left foot on a hold where my right foot should be.  Listening carefully to their encouragement and coaching from below unlocked the route for me and I was able to summit.

For those who have done it before, can you think of any other leadership lessons from rock clmibing?   

Why Pronouns Matter

I'm working my way through "Common Prayer" and enjoying the structured and pleasant way to begin my mornings.  This morning, there was a little proverb, which the authors note was "often quoted by John Perkins, pioneer of Christian community development:

Go to the people .
Live among them.
Learn from them.
Love them.
Start with what they know.
Build on what they have.
But of the best leaders,
when their task is accomplished,
when their work is done...
the people will remark:
"We have done it ourselves." (348)

The language that people use in and of your organization is telling...  Do they use pronouns like "we" or "you" when they talk about worship and service in the life of a congregation?  Does your  community use language of "them" or "us" when it thinks of the community partnerships that your church initiates?  In development work, when you think of what you are working at, do you think "I'm doing this for these people" or "I'm partnering with these people?".  The answer to the question of pronouns is more significant than you think. 

Gathering and developing the use of the right ones in one of the key tools in ethos development that a leader has at her or his disposal.  Wise and well developed leaders know the importance of little words and choose and monitor their use wisely. 

Goals are Emotional - Deal With It!

In his little leadership manifesto aptly titled "It's Not About the Coffee" former Starbucks Sr. Executive Howard Behard shares 10 principles about corporate culture and leadership.  Most of them are lifted straight from the pages of Oprah (be true to yourself, etc, etc) but nestled amidst the sometimes fluff is some good insight and leadership nuggets. 

One such piece was on goal setting and how we tend to detach it from our emotions (presumably in  the hopes that we'll make better decisions?).  But Behar, who wisely advocates later on in this book, that you "think like a person of action and act like a person of thought" (113), makes this impassioned treatise to return goals to their emotive centre:

"Goals are emotional.  If a goal is not working for you, you're not connected with it.  Raise it, make it meaningful, make it touch somthing in you that you want.  Or take it off your list...  When you set out to accomplish something, its going to require effort.  There had better be an emotional connection.  There had better be some buy-in.  There had better be some understanding of what it means, what it's all about, and why" (22). 

What goals are you emotionally connected to and why? 

The First Task of a Leader?

Max De Pree has been credited with the phrase "the first task of a leader is to define reality."  While this is certainly true, in Christian leadership it may not be fully sufficient or robust to describe the means or the ends of Christian leadership.  And describing both where we are going and how we are intending to get there is of paramount importance - without a road map of where we are going and what comes first, we may get lost along the way. 

As an example of a more robust definition of the task of leadership, several years ago, the faculty at ACTS seminaries here in Langley, BC decided that they needed to work out a definition of Christian leadership that served as a guiding influence in their vision to to shape leadership in a graduate theological context.  When I read their statement, I thought of all of the definitions of leadership that float around out there and I think they are on to something powerful because of the scope and the starting place:

Christian leadership is taking the initiative to know God deeply, to reflect His holy character, to draw together and influence communities through loving relationships, in order to fulfill His purposes in the world.  Leadership of the Christian community involves equipping God's people to develop and achieve a vision for what the Kingdom of God could be in their context by 'preparing them for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up' (Eph. 4:12)

Unpacking this statement, the first and primary task of Christian leadership isn't actually to define reality, but is "taking the initiative to know God deeply."  I would say that if we miss this as the starting point, we can define reality all we want but we're working off the wrong road map.  The first task of the Christian leader is to be a a follower.  All else flows out of that. 

Freeze Tag, Track Stars and Leadership Development

We had some friends over this afternoon and since it was sunny out, we headed to the park.  The four adults got into conversation and the kids began to play freeze tag with some of the other kids and one of the other dads at the park.  After awhile of this, the other dad came over to us and said "who are the parents of the kid in the yellow shirt?"  This usually makes my wife freeze in her tracks...  She thinks of all the bad things our kid could have done, who they pushed down the slide while we weren't looking and umpteen dozen other infractions that we might get called out by another parent on.  

Thankfully, the kid in the yellow shirt wasn't our kid.  But the other dad was also not there to chastise anyone.  He introduced himself as a former Olympic athlete and member of the national track team and he had come over to say that the kid in the yellow shirt (our friend's young son) had a natural gait and form that had impressed him.  He noted how his upper body was in the perfect position for sprinting when he ran and how this was the most difficult thing to teach anyone.  He used the word prodigy and he didn't use it lightly.

Now, if this was just some guy off the street or from the neighbourhood, I wouldn't have taken it seriously.  Afterall, most 7 year olds love to run.  But this man knew what he was looking for and knew what he was looking at.  Through years of training and discipline, he had learned to recognize and call out potential greatness wherever he saw it - even in a casual game of freeze tag at the park.  

Which makes me think about leadership development...  Would you know what to look for in a potential leader in your field?  Do you know how to spot "it" in young people?  Do you know how to spot "it" in circumstances that don't necessarily share the same contours or shapes as your chosen field but do have similarities (we weren't on the track, afterall)?  It was a good reminder to me that leadership development is a 24/7 endeavour that needs to be allowed to transpire outside the walls of the classroom or the boardroom.  Afterall, you may just find your next leadership prodigy in a game of freeze tag at the park!      

When It's Going Downhill: The 4 G's of Peacemaking

One of the things I've observed is that those of us within the peace church tradition tend to think of conflict as something that happens 'out there'.  The examples typically referenced in interloquotion are things like international conflicts, armed intervention (police, army) and the (strawman?) "what would you do if someone came into your home and attacked your family?"  

But what about when conflict comes home to roost in the church?  How does peace theology speak to the dynamics of church conflict?  Peacemakers International is a great organization who has some excellent resources for addressing these dynamics.  In a recent article in Leadership Magazine (Winter 2011), Eric Reed un-earthed some of the philosophy and theology that they use when attending to a situation that is going downhill.  They suggest the 4 G's of peacemaking:

1. Glorify God 
2. Get the log out of your own eye 
3. Gently restore 
4. Go and be reconciled

"A true peacemaker is guided, motivated and empowered by the gospel, the good news that God has forgive all our sins and made peace with us through the death and resurrection of his Son (Colossians 1:19-20).  Through Christ, he has also enabled us to break the habit of escaping from conflict or attacking others, and he has empowered us to become peacemakers who can promote genuine justice and reconciliation (Colossians 3:12-14)." (page 43)  

Sounds like a good resource if you're headed down the slippery slope of conflict!  

How to Learn Folly

As a church community we've been reading the book of Proverbs.  Most people would agree that it's a book about wisdom but I'm also learning that it teaches a lot about wisdom by pointing out what NOT to do.  This is usually termed 'folly' or personified by the fool or mocker.  For example, this morning we were reading in Proverbs 12:14 where it says that "a wise person is hungry for knowledge while a fool feeds on trash."  That got me thinking about what kind of inputs I have in my life as a person and as a leader.  

Last year when I was in Chicago, Bill Hybels gave a great nugget on what input as a leader looks like.  His advice on growing as a leader was as follows: 

• Read everything you can read on the subject of leadership - 
  • Read as a discipline – not simply recreationally.
  • Set a goal for yourself – I’m going to read x number of pages or books this year.  
  • Read across the arenas and disciplines (biography, leadership, etc)
• Go where leadership is taught - after all, if you get better as a parent, you family wins.  If you grow as a leader, everyone in your organization wins.
• Get around people who are ahead of you in leadership
  • Search out people who have built something to a scale you haven’t yet and ask them smart questions.  (Don’t try to hang around them so that you can name drop)
  • Ask humbly: “I have enormous respect for you…  I want to get better as a leader.  If I could ask you 3 questions, you don’t have to adopt me or re-parent me, I’ll buy you lunch)
  • This requires a combination of humility and initiative (you have to actually admit that there are people who are ahead of you).
• Keep Leading agressinvely whatever you are leadning - 90% of what you are going to learn, is when you go hard at this thing every day.  You make something up and we try to solve problems and

It's just like Proverbs 15:12 says "mockers hate to be corrected so they shy away from the wise".  If you want to learn folly, stay at home and watch reality TV all evening.  If you want to learn leadership, get a book and get around people who are stronger leaders than you and let them speak into your life.  

Climbing the Steep Authority Slope

On Mondays, I go into the kids' school to read with my son's class.  One thing I noticed early on was how much time the principal spends wandering the halls. When I asked a few people about it, they noted that she wants to remain approachable and in touch with what is going on in the school instead of sitting in her office or in school board meetings all day.  It got me thinking about the choices that leaders have to lead from a distance (e-mail) or by direct contact with people.  

Some leaders - even those of large organizations - have amazing capacities to be accessible and personable.  For example, I served with a pastor named Bud who knew literally thousands of names.  If he met you once, he remembered your name, your spouse, where you worked and more.  As he stood in the foyer of the large church at which we both served, he would use this skill to make a large place seem very small and personable.  Bud modeled pastoring by proximity for me.   

I was reading an article this morning about organizational conflict that further underlined this point for me.  Author and peace making advocate Ken Sande makes that case that people have to climb a "steep authority slope" in order to connect with those in charge.  In the case of a principal or pastor, many people see them as "simply not approachable.  They're up in their ivory towers.  The seem aloof.  They seem distant.  People don't think they can approach them, especially on a... point of controversy....  Part of humility is being approachable." (Leadership, Winter 2011, p. 24-25).

How steep of a slope would a person have to climb to have face to face dialogue with you?  Would they be free to disagree and still preserve the relationship?  If not, perhaps there's a mountain that needs to be made into a molehill.         

The Future of Volunteerism in Canada = Chronic shortages

Yesterday we had a school board by-election here in our city.  And as I went to vote, I noticed something intriguing...  everyone else involved in the process - the candidates, those working the polls, the other voters, and volunteers - were all over 55 years of age.  Which got me thinking 'is there a correlation between engagement - civic, religious or otherwise - and age'?  While this blog is not designed to speak to the question of political engagement, the question of volunteerism and its relationship to the local church is of great interest to me. So I did some digging.

Turns out Volunteer Canada did a detailed survey with Angus Reid and the results support at least some of my observations.  Research indicates that "a small group of uber-volunteers is now responsible for the vast majority of all volunteering hours.  And these dedicated few are aging rapidly...  Canadians older than 55 are the countries most generous demographic" (survey quoted in Macleans, 'Making Commitments for the Year Ahead, Jan 17, 2011, Vol 124, Issue 1, pages 4-5).  

The survey also encouragingly revealed that most of their volunteer work is is directed at local houses of worship (churches, synagogues, etc).  But what happens in 15-25 years when these uber-volunteers reach their 70's and 80's?  The stark reality for churches, politics and civic organizations of all kinds is that if we aren't extending our reach downward, then we might be in for a national and chronic shortage of volunteers.