Latent Leadership Lessons

News came out a couple weeks ago that a prominent personage in the Christian community was a serial abuser. Maddeningly, the report is post-mortem, but the pain and confusion remain alive and raw. Every time I read of a failed leader, at any level of responsibility or any domain of activity, it reminds me of leadership lessons I continue to (re)learn.

 

It was the mid 1990s, and I was asked to teach a weekly class by the pastor of the church where my wife and I were members. I was humbled by the request and excited at the opportunity to use my gifts, knowledge, and experience to help others grow their faith in Jesus. Over time, the class grew in size to over a hundred people. A number of elders and other leaders within the church were sitting in on the discussion.

 

I also happened to be working on my doctoral degree, and I was eager to work out in real life the ideas I had developing in my head. I was willing to say provocative things as a challenge to what I saw as religious ghetto thinking. I hoped for an open forum to discuss touchy topics like mental illness and sex in a biblical context. I soon had groupies following me from the classroom into the auditorium. I would find my pew for the worship service, and I always had a few people standing by my side wanting to ask questions and hang there with me. Though it was not my intent, things were, as we say, happening.  

 

One Sunday, I chose to make a theological statement that crossed the line. A couple in the front row stood up, turned around, and slammed the door on their way out. A few days later, I was sitting at one end of a long boardroom table with the church elders. The chairman began the meeting by asking me why I thought we were having this meeting. I had the audacity to say that the reason I thought we were having this meeting was that they—the elders—had a problem.

 

Lord, have mercy.

 

At the end of the meeting, the church elders had the wisdom to suggest we reconvene in twenty-four hours and try again. Fine. I was ready. I walked out to my car, turned on the headlights, and drove home in the dark. I travelled down Hudson Road for a mile and turned left onto Phillips Road. Phillips Road goes downhill, curves, and bottoms out at a creek bed. And then the road begins a steep and curvy hill up. I will never forget what happened next.

 

As I was driving up that hill on Phillips Road, I had something close to a Damascus road experience. About half-way up the hill, I remember a full moon occupying the right half of my windshield. What seemed like a bolt of lightening flashed across my conscience and jolted me off my high horse. I came to the stop sign at the top of the hill and sat there shuddering with my chest on fire. Instantly and emphatically, everything got clear: I was being confronted by what I can only call The Living Truth whose name I had profaned. I was in over my head. I was no longer qualified to lead.

 

The next evening at the follow-up elder’s meeting, I asked to begin the meeting without introduction. I began by telling them what happened to me on the way home the previous evening, and that I was resigning my teaching role immediately. I also committed to call all the people in the class and to individually seek each ones forgiveness. The whole process was a severe mercy that, while I wish I had not disgraced the Lord’s name, I do not regret being stopped in my tracks and corrected.

 

I was also not prepared for what happened the following Sunday. I walked into the class I formerly taught, and sat there as everyone else did. After the class was finished, we all made our way to the auditorium just like any other Sunday. Except this time, the groupies were gone. When I got to my pew seat, there were no questioners or hangers-on. Yet I was still me, the same person I was two weeks previous. The only thing I could tell that was any different was that I was no longer in a leadership position. And that made all the difference.

 

No longer being “the man” was helpful in that it gave me time to evaluate what had happened. One of the most important lessons I had to come to grips with is that I now believe it’s nearly inevitable that leaders end up conflating their role and their identity. Slowly but surely, unsuspectingly but deeply, I was being transformed from being a leader under Authority to being the Leader with authority. I could never say it that plainly back then because I didn’t see it that clearly back then. The lessons were always there, latently, waiting to be discovered.

 

It’s an emotional rush to be “on” when leading, to know when you’re in the zone is like being the director of an orchestra. Add in a growing number of instrumentalists who are eagerly willing to follow and praise the director and the music intensifies. It’s exhilarating to lead something so dynamic. But there’s a conceit in the endeavor. Leading is not just what I’m doing, it’s who I am. I believe the likelihood of this happening goes up factorially the more successful and prosperous the leader grows. Call it “victim of one’s own success.”  

 

For me to say that I think this transformation from role into identity is inevitable means that leaders, especially those who call themselves Christians, should be in a constant state of risk management. Being able to eliminate the risk is not the goal, but identifying the markers of the slide is a critical first step. What do I think some of these markers might be?

 

I’ll say more about this next time, but here are some indicators that one’s role as a leader may be bleeding over into your sense of self, worth, and value: people become objects (i.e., your frustration with people goes up, your empathy goes down, entitlement settles in), minority reports are sidelined (i.e., countervailing voices are discounted, the inner circle becomes self-congratulatory, defensiveness is justified), and the flow of grace via forgiveness diminishes (i.e., there are justifications for what you did and didn’t do and instead say “I’m sorry” as a faux grace, you become increasingly uncorrectable). Think about it.

 

Because there’s only one Leader who gets this right all the time, and He’s not you or me.