The Chaos caused by insecure leaders

 In my consulting with troubled churches and ministry organizations I often encounter the chaos that is created by the insecurities of the senior leader. Those of us who lead anything - a team, a church, an organization or in business owe it to our staff to lead from a place of personal security rather than from insecurity. Here are the key issues that are signs of a leader's insecurity. If they pertain to you, pay attention to them. If you are a board member of an organization and these are represented by your senior leader - please get them help. They are destructive and harmful to those around them.

1. When a leader is defensive and resists feedback he is operating out of insecurity. Secure leaders invite feedback even when they may not agree with it and they are not defensive. In fact secure leaders go to great lengths to know what their staff is thinking, to interact with them and to keep themselves from shutting down discussion out of defensiveness. Personal defensiveness and healthy leadership are incompatible.

2. When a leader tells staff that they cannot talk to board members or other about issues or ideas they are operating from a position of insecurity. Secure leaders welcome dialogue and do not put gag orders on their staff. Of course once a team has decided a course of action they should all support it. But gag orders come from leader who know that there is not support from their staff and want to hide it from others rather than resolve it. One of the marks of unhealthy church staff teams is the notion that staff cannot share their opinions or thoughts with others. Inevitably this is a culture that will blow up badly in the end. It is a true sign of leader insecurity.

3. When a leader sees "loyalty" as meaning you must agree with me you have an arrogant or insecure leader. It implies that personal loyalty is more important than loyalty to the mission and well being of the organization. That is a terrible assumption and it comes out of dysfunctional leadership. It also implies that staff are simply there to do the bidding of the leader rather than to make a real contribution to the mission and strategy. Healthy leaders want staff who are loyal to the cause and respectful to one another.

4. When a leader regularly uses their "positional authority" to push people in a certain direction or get their assent you have an insecure leader. Staff who regularly feel pressure to conform to the opinion or decisions of a leader and who have not been invited into discussions where they are stakeholders should recognize that they are dealing with dysfunction rather than health. All leaders use positional authority in certain but usually fairly rare circumstances. Those who use it regularly are saying, "I am in charge and you will do what I say."

5. When people are publicly called out by a leader you are dealing with an insecure leader who is using the public "calling out" as a power play to put others in line. It violates the dictum that we praise in public and deal with disciplinary issues in private. The very leaders who do this would never allow themselves to be called out in public. It is plain intimidation and unhealthy and it says more about the leader than the staff member.

6. When a leader must have their own way on a regular basis you have an insecure leader. Secure leaders want what is best for the organization not their own way. Healthy leaders regularly modify their agendas and strategies in dialogue with their staff. Life is not about getting our own way but about accomplishing a common mission. The "my way or the highway" is an adolescent character trait rather than the trait of a mature leader.

7. When a leader takes credit for the success of others who made the organization look good you have an insecure leader. Secure leaders do not need the spotlight and they do not seek it. In fact, they go out of their way to give credit away rather than to keep it themselves. They know that success comes from a team, not any one individual and they acknowledge that regularly.

8. When a leader regularly puts others down you have an insecure leader. Usually they are putting others down in order to build themselves up. Healthy leaders keep their own counsel on others and do not share negative information about others with others.

This is all about having a healthy self image and good EQ. When that is not there we end up hurting others in ways that may take years to undo. If any of these characteristics represent you as a leader take note and work to correct the damage and your leadership style. 

Are you leading from positional authority or influence?

 

We are trained to believe that positional authority is necessary if we are going to have influence. In fact, we usually believe that influence and positional authority are one and the same or must both be present in order to be successful in ministry (or other venues).

I beg to differ. I have written previously that the best influence is from our lives and not from our position. If we believe that positional authority and influence are one and the same, what do we do with someone like Barnabas, whose influence made Paul what he became - and who probably had little or no positional authority. Or think of the average lay individual who has a huge influence on many people without any positional influence. 

Certainly, in missions, influence is far more important than authority. In fact, in most ministry situations, our position allows us to possibly tell others what to do (often not a good way to do leadership), but non-staff or those around us don't particularly care about our position. What they do care about is whether we have the heart to help and serve them. Furthermore, people don't listen carefully to those they don't respect, and respect comes from the quality of our lives rather than the position we hold.

Relying for influence on our positional authority is a big mistake because we can be badly mistaken that our position gave us influence when, in fact, it may or may not. Influence comes from healthy spiritual, relational, and emotional intelligence. It also comes from a kingdom heart that desires to serve others more than it desires to serve ourselves. 

It is the way of Jesus, who had no worldly positional power. Nor did it seem to bother him. His self-image was not wrapped up in position but rather gave up his position to have influence with those who deserved none of it (Philippians 2). 

It is easy to chase the wrong prize in life. Chasing positional authority for its sake is not a worthy prize. Investing our lives to bring influence for Jesus is the ultimate worthy endeavor. 

I often ask people who was the most important person in the New Testament outside of the Gospels. The answer is almost always Paul. Personally, I wonder if it is Barnabas who came alongside Paul when no one else would, loved him, believed him, and invested in him. It was all about influence, and it produced (in God's Spirit and providence) the greatest leader in the early church - at least in the spread of Christianity and the clarity of theology.

This ought to be a great encouragement to all who don't have positional authority in their lives and ministries. The good news is that our influence is far more important than our position, and we can have influence from any place God has put us. In many churches, for instance, the people of greatest influence have no authority. Rather, they are people who speak wisely, serve others, and model what a Christian ought to be. 

We may possess positional authority, but our greatest contribution will inevitably come from our influence. Some have both, but if all you have is positional authority, it is not enough and not a worthy prize. 

Why the church itself is largely responsible for people not returning post Covid

 

The phenomena of those who have chosen not to return to church has been the subject of speculation as numbers have dropped dramatically in church attendance. Even long time church attenders are absent and have indicated that they don't intend to come back.

A case can be made that in many cases, this reflects either poor theology (I don't need church or I can get what I want online when I need it) or low spiritual commitment (I can do my spirituality without the church). Certainly Covid sped up the tendency among church goers that Sunday is a day off and church is an option but not a priority.

Covid's fallout thus reflects the loss of those whose faith was less than robust, who may have been church attendees by habit or tradition or many who simply find the church irrelevant to their lives.

My take is that while the above is often true, that the church itself is largely responsible for people not returning post Covid. It has itself to blame and it should cause major reevaluation as to the purpose, message and engagement of the church. So here is my take on dwindling church attendance in the post Covid world.

We have failed to teach and live a Biblical ecclesiology. We have lost a Biblical theology of the church. The Scriptures have a theology of church that has been lost because the church has not taught it or lived it. Scripturally, the church is a gathering of God's people to worship God in community, be encouraged and challenged by God's Word, in community, care for one another in community, and engage in God's work in the outside world together as God's people are released into their gifting to live out their unique God given calling and legacy.

Instead we have made worship services about us rather than about God. The focus is on meeting our own needs rather than being focused on the worship of our creator. Certainly that needs to be done in culturally sensitive ways but still it begs the question as to whether the focus of the service is on us or on God. 

We have failed to teach and live out the "one another" aspect of the Christian life. Here is where in the words of Scripture, male and female, Jew and gentile, rich and poor, slave and free, people from every background, culture and language become one in Christ. The Gospel is the great leveler as the Spirit knits disparate people into one- body that is the local manifestation of the body of Christ. None of this happens in isolation. It happens in authentic community. It happens as we are forced to grapple with what it means to be part of the body of Christ and to move from autonomous independent individuals to people knit together by the Holy Spirit. Quite simply, that does not happen in isolation but in community, sometimes messy community. If we understood God's plan for the church, diminishing our commitment to the church would not be an option. But we don't.

We have substituted feel good teaching for transformational teaching. Many messages from the pulpit today can hardly be differentiated from the self help section of books at Barnes and Nobles. There may be great advice there but Scripture is meant to teach, instruct, rebuke (where necessary), train us in righteousness and challenge our thinking, relationships, hearts, actions and priorities. Too little of our preaching does that these days. In traditional settings it is theology without application. In non traditional settings it is often self help without theology. This is the fault of the church.

If I want self help, the You Tube channel, a podcast or a book will suffice. I don't need church for that. If I want theology and Biblical teaching that forces me to think Biblically and allow the Holy Spirit to transform my life, I need the church because all of this is done most powerfully in community with other believers. This is not about entertaining folks on Sunday mornings but engaging people in a common experience of worship, prayer, Bible teaching with our fellow pilgrims.

We have changed ministry from that of living out our God given wiring and gifting meant to reach the world to volunteerism within the four walls of our churches. Don't get me wrong. The church as an organism needs the best of what each of us has to bring. We are all fellow ministers working to grow together and it is as we use our gifts that the body of Christ is built up into what it is meant to be (Ephesians 4). Note again the emphasis on community. 

However, the call of God on our lives goes beyond serving coffee on Sundays. It goes to a lifestyle where we are intentionally using our God given gifts on a 24/7 basis, not only inside the four walls of the church but in the world where we live and work and play. Yet in many ways the church has defined ministry as what happens within its four walls and in doing so has downplayed the strategic call of God on each of our lives to be His representatives in a hurting and broken world. In doing so we have diminished the important work that God has for each of our lives whether we are school teachers, janitors, salespeople, executives or wherever God has placed us in life and work. We have failed to help Christ followers understand the way that God wants to use them in a fallen world.

We have allowed "information" about the Christian life to trump "relationship" in the Christian life.  If the Christian life is primarily about information, we can find that commodity in many places. But that is not the teaching of Scripture. It is in community that we grow as we learn to love disparate and different people. It is in community that I learn to care for others and be the hands and feet of Jesus. It is in community that I learn the humility of working and living with others. It is in community that I learn to put my spiritual maturity to the test: to forgive, work together, use my gifts for the common good; be encouraged and challenge others. Count up the "one another" statements in the New Testament and you get the picture. Even Jesus, our greatest example, chose to live life in community with twelve other individuals so say nothing of the many hundreds of others who were part of His larger community. 

We have allowed church size to substitute for church health. I am not a critic of large churches. Many become large because they are healthy. I am a critic of the drive to become large as if the size of our congregation is an indication of health. I would rather see small churches who lived out a Biblical ecclesiology than a large church that did not. Church health results in transformed lives. Church success is the life change of its people through the Holy Spirit and living in community where we must put our theology into practice. 

My conclusion is that the church itself is responsible for much of the fallout from our Covid period. In that sense, Covid can be a wake up call for the church and call us back to become missional communities once again that engage people in community for our transformation and His glory. It is worth thinking about.

One thing leaders often get wrong that diminishes their organization's impact

 

Over the years I have had the privilege of consulting with numerous organizations. As a consultant I am often engaged to help resolve problems within the organization. This is counterintuitive but I have often found that in their desire to serve their constituents, leaders, even very good leaders hurt their organizations because they neglect their staff.

They don't see staff as their first priority. Thus they don't invest much time in developing staff members, helping them be successful at their work. Here is a common theme by staff: I don't get enough time with my leader. I get the leftovers of their time and energy. But here is the thing - simply stated.

The key to an organization's success is the staff. The heathier and more engaged the staff is, the greater the impact they will have. When a leader makes his/her staff the second priority in order to serve their ultimate customers they actually lose because unhappy, unaligned, undeveloped staffs eventually implode. And when they implode who gets hurt? Those they are there to serve. Ironically, the leader is often caught in the fallout as the staff no longer respects them. Neglect your staff and everyone suffers!

Organizational leaders serve through their staff team, not around their staff team. Staff are not a distraction but the key to the organization's success. If you are a leader who is too busy to spend the time that your staff needs with you, you are not leading. And, your priority of serving your constituents at the expense of staff will end badly for you, the staff and your customers. It just does!

I have helped to clean up too many situations because leaders neglected their staff. Don't let it happen to you.